A Brief History Of Wind Power

Mankind has been harnessing the energy of the wind to power our machines for centuries. The obvious example of the first use of wind power is in sailing. Mankind has been building boats that are propelled by the wind for over five thousand years. We have constructed sails on our boats that allow us to capture the force of the wind and move our boats across the water.

The first usage of wind power to drive mechanical machines dates from the 7th century in Iran. This is the first example of the windmill. A number of sails attached around a large vertical drive shaft capture the energy of the wind to spin the shaft. This motion was used for grinding up crops.

In Europe we see the proliferation of the horizontal axis windmill late in the 12th century. Primarily used to grind flour, some of this style of windmill still exist today in Holland. Note the different styles of windmill: the vertical axis windmill first appears in the Middle East but it is the horizontal axis windmill that first appears in Europe.

In the 19th century windmills are typically used for milling and irrigation pumps. They exist across Europe and the Midwest of America. The first windmill used for electricity creation was built in Scotland in 1887 by James Blyth. His ten meter construction powered the lighting in his holiday cottage, making this building a significant first in the evolution of renewable energy.

In America, Charles Brush designed and built a larger windmill at around the same time. This was used for a few years to power lamps and motors in his laboratory.

In the 20th century wind power turbines were cropping up the whole world over. In Denmark there was a push towards having many small electricity generating sites, and wind power was a large part of that drive. In Australia wind turbines were used to power remote post offices. In America, rural off grid farms are harnessing wind power until they were connected to the grid.

The first megawatt turbine was built in Vermont USA in 1941. In the 1970s and 1980s the US government, through NASA, pushed on the technology and researched and pioneered many of the designs that we still use today.

Nowadays, concerns over the availability of the remaining fossil fuels, and particularly rising oil prices have led to increasing energy tariffs. Modern thinking proposes that the future holds more of the same. This has led to many people to return to residential wind power to gain some independence from the utility companies.