The 1930’s and the passing of the Rural Electrification Act changed all that. Soon, electric lines were strung all across the country. With cheap, seemingly endless supply of electricity from the grid, there was no real need for these modern vestiges of the era. So as quickly as the industry grew it faded away into a chapter of American history as a technology that was critical to the development of the country.

Since that time, people have dabbled with the development of larger wind turbines. During WWII a serious undertaking was made by the Americans and Germans as a way to preserve precious oil that was needed to fuel the war. However, this faded as the war came to a close.

A resurgence came back during the 1970’s oil crisis. Predictions of the cost of energy would increase five fold and the U.S. Government under President Carter instituted a program that encouraged the development and installation of wind. These machines however, were quite different from their ancestors of 50 years ago. The average size of wind generator then was 1-3KW, the machine of the late 1970’s was approaching 100kw.

Several thousand machines were installed in the windy passes of California; enough to provide power for about a million homes. Although most of these machines are still in operation today, many of them were not quite ready for primetime and they failed. Growth stalled during the 1980’s as the high energy costs never materialized and the Regan administration pushed policies based on oil rather than renewables.

The 1990’s brought new concerns to light relating to the environment. Then President Bush and President Clinton introduced new incentives related to the performance of the wind turbine. Rather than paying for the hardware only as was done in the 70 and80’s, the incentive was based on every kWh that was produced. The incentive was set at $.015 per kWh a seemingly small number that later had a tremendous impact on the industry.

This incentive spurred the development of larger and larger machines that were more reliable, cost less to maintain and operate. The cost of electricity dropped from $.45 per kWh down to a present $.03 today. The cost of large wind energy is significantly less than Nuclear, Oil and Natural Gas and is competitive with Coal. The average machine is now 1.5 MW in size which is fifteen times the size of the machine just 15 years ago. The next generation wind turbines now in prototype are 4-5 MW. One machine has the capability of powering more than 10,000 homes. These goliaths stand some 100 meters high with blade diameters of more than 100 meters.

Along with large wind development is small wind. Though both technologies share the same ancestor, their markets are quite different.

Small wind has remained small. Like all technology, small wind has become more reliable, lighter weight and lower in cost. While small wind has not grown as aggressively as large wind, its market which was virtually non-existent in the late 70’s. Today more than 50 companies around the world produce an estimated 50,000 wind generators per year. Southwest Windpower produces approximately 10,000 machines per year.

Unlike its ancestor, small wind is now used for a variety of applications of which you will find throughout this website. These include remote homes, water pumping, telecommunication systems, off shore platform lighting, Cathodic protection and remote monitoring to name a few. Photovoltaics, a process of converting the light of the sun into electricity has also prospered in the last 20 years. The cost of photovoltaics has dropped from a cost of $10 per watt in the 1970’s to a present $3.00 per watt today. Small wind and photovoltaics are often seen as complimentary technology as both are used together as a hybrid system to offset the variability resource of the sun and wind.