The History of Wind Energy

History.
By Emil Bedi, CANCEEand Hakan Falk, "Energy Saving Now".

Wind has been used by humankind as a natural source of energy for tens of thousands of years. The use of wind energy dates back to the dawn of civilisation when sailing vessels were powered by the wind. The first simple sailboats were set afloat in Egypt about 5,000 years ago. Around the year 700 AD, in what is Afghanistan today, the first wind machines rotating around a vertical axis were employed to grind grain. The famous fixed-tower windmills with sails provided irrigation for many parts of the Mediterranean island of Crete. Wind-driven gristmills were one of the greatest technical challenges of the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, the Dutch improved on the design that had spread throughout the Middle East and continued to use it for its primary purpose of grinding grain.
A wind powered water pump was introduced in the United States in 1854. It was the familiar fan type with many vanes around a wheel and a tail to keep it pointed into the wind. By 1940, over 6 million of these windmills were being used in the United States mainly for pumping water and generating electricity. The “Wild West” was won at least in part with the help of these wind pumps that were used to supply water for the massive herds of cattle.
However, the 20th century soon brought an end to the widespread use of wind energy, which gave way to the “modern” energy resources, oil and electricity. It was not until after the oil crisis that wind energy options met with renewed interest. As a result of the drastic rises in oil prices at the beginning of the 1970s, energy planners have once again been turning their attention increasingly to the utilization of wind energy. State-sponsored research and development grants in many countries have provided a fresh stimulus to the development of technology for the utilization of wind energy. Efforts have been concentrated on developing wind energy converters for generating electricity, because in the industrialized countries the application of wind pumps is of minor importance.

USA
The oil embargo of 1973 was the driving force behind wind turbine development programs in the United States. Westinghouse Electric developed first generation of 200 kW wind turbines, known as MOD-OAs. The largest of this series and the largest in the world, the 3,2 MW MOD-5B is operating in Oahu, Hawaii. The Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978 and a 25% tax credit for investors in turbines jump started commercial development of the United States wind industry and resulted in 6870 turbines being installed in California between 1981 and 1984. The tax credits expired on Dec. 31, 1985. None of the small wind turbine companies, however, were owned by large companies committed to long term market development, so when the federal tax credits expired and oil prices dropped to USD 10 a barrel, most of the small wind turbine industry once again disappeared. The companies that survived this “market adjustment” and are producing small wind turbines today are those whose machines were the most reliable and whose reputations were the best. Nevertheless the year 1998 showed that the interest in wind energy is back again.

DENMARK
Denmark’s wind energy industry is a major commercial success story. From standing start in the 1980 to a turnover of 1 billion USD in 1998. Danish wind turbines dominate the global market. From a few hundred workers in 1981 the industry now employs 15000 people. Its turnover is twice as large as the value of Denmark’s North Sea gas production. Output , mainly for export around the world, has increased to 1216 MW of capacity in 1998. Now over half of the wind turbine capacity installed globally is of Danish origin.

The Danish government introduced support for renewable energy technology in 1979, covering 30% of capital cost. State aid encouraged the development of a highly successful wind turbine industry (it has also been used to promote the use of straw, biogas and solar projects).Danish wind turbine manufacturers were advised on ways of improving the performance and reducing costs of their machines by experts based at the National Wind Turbine Test Centre at Riso. The grants for wind turbines were reduced to 15% in 1986and finally phased out all together in 1989 as the industry became established. They have since been replaced by tax credits – the owners of wind turbines obtain a proportion of the income from the sale of electricity tax free.

Huge wind power development In Denmark was mainly based on activity of local people organised in co-operatives. Here is one example from Bryrup Wind turbine Co-operative (Jutland), 110 km from the West-coast and 50 km from the Eastern coastline. This co-operative has 70 partners owning three wind turbines installed between 1986 and ‘89. The effects is as follows: one 95 kW producing 184 000 kWh a year and two 150 kW each producing 275,000 kWh. Thus average total production amounts to 734 000 kWh annually.
Total price for all three turbines including foundation and connection to the public grid amounted to 2,5 million DKr (1 USD equals 6.2 DKr). This investment is split up in 734 “shares!’, each related to a production (and a consumption) of 1000 kWh, at a cost of 3,400 DKr. This equals half a month salary after tax for an unskilled Danish worker. Each partner can buy “shares” in proportion to his annual consumption of electricity plus 30%. If for instance annual consumption is 10 000 kWh you may add 3 000 kWh and thus be able to acquire maximum 13 “shares”. This restriction is applied because the profit for co-operative partners is tax- free, and the Danish legislators did not wanted this profit to be unreasonable. The partners have bought an amount of “shares” at numbers between 1 and 28. At the democratic general assemblies each partner has one vote despite numbers of “shares”. The reason for putting shares in quotation marks is related to the fact that these “shares” can not be traded like normal shares. By coming sales, buyers must apply to the rules referring to electricity consumption.
The economy of this co-operative is good. They distribute every year - after putting aside a reasonable amount for maintenance and renewals - 510 DKr per “share”, which gives a tax-free Interest rate of 15% what is more than banks can offer for your money. Today installation of wind turbines is a bit more costly. A share will amount to 4000 DKr, thus reducing interest rate to 12,75%.
The Danish governmental support for wind power has caused that every tenth Danish family is member of a wind turbine co-operative or single owner of a wind turbine.

GERMANY
In contrast to the situation in Denmark or California, where a large number of wind generators were installed early on, the revival in Germany was relatively late in coming. In 1989, the German Federal Government initiated a promotion programme which called for the installation of wind generators with a total capacity of 250 MW over the next seven years. German utilities are legally obliged to credit 90% of the standard rate charged to their customers for the wind-generated electricity supplied to the public power mains by any operator. This currently corresponds to a value of DM 0.17/KWh (US$ 0.11/KWh). This programme has led to a rapid increase in the number of installations and today Germany is leading country in installed wind power capacity.

DEVELOPMENT
Windpower has retained its status as the fastest growing energy source in the world. Until the year 1998 wind turbines with a total generating capacity of over 9500 megawatts have been built around the world and they generated enough power for about 3,5 million homes.

Country	Installed capacity in MW End of 1998	Increase of capacity (1997-98)
Germany	2875	36,4 %
USA	2141	9,9 %
Denmark	1420	30,6 %
India	992	19,9 %
Spain	880	87,7 %
Netherlands	379	15,0 %
UK	338	19,1 %
China	200	65,6 %
WORLD	9597	27 %

In Europe, over 1600 MW was constructed in the year 1998 and energy analysts now consider that by the year 2010 almost 40.000 MW can be installed around the continent. Germany led the way in 1998, with a record 793 MW of wind schemes going up. This brought the country’s total to an impressive 2875 MW, producing as much electricity as two of the country’s largest coal-fired power stations. The average size of turbine increased by 150 kW to 785 kW. Spain also boomed, with 256 MW of new installations contributing to a total of 707 MW. It is estimated that 23% of electricity in the northern Spanish province of Navarra is now provided by the wind. Denmark was equally active, with 300 MW installed. The United States was the other flourishing market, its revived activity bringing a further 235 MW on line. Worldwatch Institute values the sales of wind turbines globally in the year 1998 at roughly USD 2 billion. It says that larger turbines, more efficient manufacturing and careful siting have brought wind power costs down from USD 2600 per kilowatt in 1981 to USD 800 in 1998. The institute expected at least an additional 2500 MW to be installed world-wide during 1999. The reality seems much better because until the end of June 1999 more than 2000 MW were added to the total capacity.

Year	Megawatts in World	Megawatts in Europe
1980	10	-
1985	1020	80
1990	1930	475
1995	4820	2531
1998	9597	6030

The cost of wind power continued to decline through advancements in design, siting practices and the cost of capital from around 14 US cents per kWh in 1986 to below 5 cents per kWh in 1999. Wind power is now cost-competitive in many electric power applications and that is why it is experiencing rapidly growing deployment.
Over the past two years wind energy capacity has been expanding at an annual rate of more than 30%. In contrast, the nuclear industry is growing at a rate of less than 1% whilst coal has not grown at all in the 1990’s. Europe is the centre of this young and high-tech industry. 90% of the world’s manufacturers of medium and large wind turbines are European.

Wind capacity in end of June1999 (MW).

Germany	3390,6
USA	2532,8
Denmark	1581,3
Spain	1100
India	1013,2
The Netherlands	374
UK	344
China	246
Italy	222
Sweden	187
WORLD	11612

POTENTIAL
On current expectations, wind power is expected to grow at an annual rate of 20 % between 1998 and 2003, resulting in a total of 33 400 MW of installed capacity around the world by the end of that period. According to recent study “Wind Force 10” wind power could generate 10 % of global electricity by 2020, and create 1,7 million jobs at the same time. International installation of 1,2 million MW of wind capacity by 2020 would generate more electricity than the entire continent of Europe consumes today. Total wind energy potential in the world is 53 trillion kWh, 17 times higher than the Wind Force 10 goal. According to the study the cost of generating electricity with wind turbines is expected to drop to 2.5 US cents/kWh by 2020, compared to the current 4.7 US cents/kWh.
Environmental benefits of the 10 % target would be enormous – savings of 69 million tonnes of CO2 in 2005, 267 millions tons in 2010 and 1780 million tonnes in 2020.

JOBS
Renewable energy has become an important employer. There are over 110.000 jobs in the manufacture, installation and maintenance of renewable energy technologies in the European Union. Wind energy accounts for around 20% of this. Most of the 700 companies involved are small and medium sized enterprises. As the industry grows, so more jobs are created. At the end of 1996 more than 20.000 Europeans were estimated to be employed in wind energy, and this figure is projected to grow to 40.000 by the year 2000.

Markets

Wind power systems are being built all over the world. They are ideally suited to the needs of developing countries, which urgently need new capacity. They can be brought on line relatively cheaply and quickly in comparison with large power stations, which need major electrical infrastructure and grid systems to transmit their power. Developed countries are also a key growth area as they turn to wind power for environmental and economic reasons. Wind energy can be integrated into existing electrical systems, reducing the amount of power which needs to be generated by burning fossil fuels.

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