History of wind energy: From the beginnings to the present day

The history of wind energy has been shaped by the contribution of scientists and engineers who have devoted their professional lives to this renewable energy source. Thanks to them, wind turbines have developed incredibly and have become one of the most important sources of renewable energy in the world.

The beginnings of wind energy

The first recorded windmills were vertical axis windmills used at least 3000 years ago. They were mainly used for grinding grain or pumping water, purely for mechanical purposes. The earliest records of horizontal axis windmills can be traced back to documents from Persian, Tibetan, and Chinese cultures around 1000 BC. Figure 1 shows a vertical axis windmill found in Afghanistan.

The Persian windmills were vertical axis machines with sails made of bundles of reeds or wood and are considered the oldest in the world. These mills are located in Nashtifan (Iran), where wind speeds of around 30 m/s can be recorded, and which, amazingly, are still working today. Despite being made of fragile materials such as clay, they have withstood the force of the wind for several centuries.

From Persia and the Middle East, mills reached the Mediterranean countries and Central Europe. The rapid development was influenced by the Crusades, which caused mills to appear in many places in Europe. The first horizontal axis mills appeared in England around 1150, in France in 1180, in Germany in 1222, and in Denmark in 1259. In the 13th century, industrialization caused the decline of windmills due to the arrival of internal combustion engines and the generalization of rural electrification.

Another example are the windmills located in the natural region of La Mancha, in central Spain. These windmills became famous thanks to the novel “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha”, written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in 1605. These windmills are scattered throughout the region of La Mancha and their fame has increased over time. If you visit Spain, you should follow the Don Quixote route.

Start generating electricity

In 1887, American inventor Charles Francis Brush built the first multi-bladed 12 kW DC wind turbine, which is considered to be the first automatically operated machine to generate electricity. This wind turbine had 144 wooden blades with a rotor diameter of 17 meters. It was a huge wind turbine that was used to charge lead-acid batteries and had a useful life of about 20 years. Although Brush did early work in wind turbine manufacturing, he has been forgotten as the pioneer of early multi-bladed wind turbines.

Years later, in 1891, Danish physicist Poul la Cour succeeded in improving the performance of Charles F. Brush’s wind turbine. Poul la Cour realized that reducing the number of rotor blades increased the production of electrical energy. He built the first wind turbine to produce electricity in Askov, Denmark, which is considered the forerunner of today’s wind turbines. He is considered the pioneer of modern wind turbines and modern aerodynamics. He built his own wind tunnel to conduct his aerodynamic tests to improve the shape of his wind turbine blades. In addition, La Cour was a teacher at the People’s High School in Askov, where he taught various courses for wind electricians. He founded the first Wind Energy Academy, which attracted a large number of students who later became professionals who helped develop wind energy.

Historical Wind Turbines

Poul la Cour’s research helped Danish engineers improve the performance and technology of wind turbines during World War I and World War II. In this way, windmills helped to overcome the lack of energy caused by the wartime shortage of fossil fuels. This led to the massification of windmills for electricity generation. Figure 8 shows the distribution of La Cour wind turbines in a valley in the Netherlands.

From the design of Poul la Cour’s wind turbine in 1891 until 1958, several designs of wind turbines were produced that have remained in the history of engineering. Danish wind turbines were based on windward rotors with passive control by aerodynamic loss, as they had advanced knowledge of aerodynamics for the time. While the US wind turbines were based on variable pitch control. During this period, wind turbines had no electronic development in their system due to the incipient power electronics of the time. Table 1 shows the most important wind turbines between 1891 and 1958.

Evolution of Wind Turbine Size and Technology

Since 1980, the size of wind turbines has increased dramatically to reduce the price per kilowatt-hour generated. In this way, wind power has gradually become a competitive energy source. Advances in power electronics have had a major impact on wind power technology, making it more complex, efficient and powerful. Figure 9 shows the reference evolution of the size and development of electronics in wind turbines since 1980.

Since the year 2000, the influence of power electronics in the wind energy conversion system has become more significant. This is mainly due to the use of DFIG (Doubly-Fed Induction Generator) and PMSG (Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator) generators and the gradual abandonment of the SCIG (Squirrel Cage Induction Generator) generator. The most powerful wind turbines (greater than 5 MW) are generally for offshore installations. The tendency of wind turbines is to increase both their height and the size of their blades in order to obtain more power, i.e. to have fewer machines in a wind farm and to generate more power. Wind turbines with a capacity of more than 10 MW can be defined as “mega wind turbines”, where there is a high level of competition between manufacturers.

For example, GE Renewable Energy’s 12 MW Haliade-X wind turbine was considered the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbine, but Chinese manufacturer Mingyang Smart Energy announced the production of the 16 MW MySE 16.0-242 wind turbine, which would be the world’s largest wind turbine to date.

Today’s wind turbines can perform functions that were not previously thought possible due to the development and integration of power electronics into the wind energy conversion system. It is incredible how wind turbines have evolved from their beginnings as simple mechanical machines for grinding grain or pumping water, through the wind turbines of Charles Brush and Poul la Cour, to today’s imposing wind machines for producing electrical energy.

References

[1] Ackermann, T. (Ed.). (2012b). Wind Power in Power Systems: Ackermann/Wind Power in Power Systems. Wiley-Blackwell.

[2] Burton, T., etc., Sharpe, D., Jenkins, N., & Bossanyi, E. (2001). Wind Energy Handbook. John Wiley & Sons.