Wind on the Wires1 - Smart Grid (R) Evolution: Electric Power Struggles - page 135

wind research with $19.1 million (Heymann 1998 ) . Much of the German and American
research was focused on designing effective and efficient larger wind turbines that would
be able to generate larger amounts of power than the existing turbines of the time. The
Danish program took a different, bottom-up approach (Vestergaard, Brandstrup, and
Goddard 2004 ) .
During the late 1970's and early 1980's, the U.S. program focused primarily on
large-scale turbine development. Led by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and involving large aerospace and energy firms such as Boeing,
McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed, and Westinghouse, the U.S. program developed four
machines; however, they suffered from mechanical difficulties, with the most successful
running for 8,000 hours (Heymann 1998 ) . From 1987 to 1992 NASA's MOD-5-B operated
for a total of 20,000 hours in Hawaii before it was dismantled due to chronic mechanical
failures and high costs. After this, the federal United States wind turbine development
program was ramped down (Heymann 1998 ).
In Germany, the Ministry for Research and Technology (Bundesministerium fur
Forschung und Technologie , BMFT) began to invest in research to develop large-scale
wind turbines in 1974. Like the U.S. program, Germany's was also focused primarily on
the development of large machines. An enormous 3MW two-bladed Growian (or big wind
power plant) installed from 1983 to 1987 became a very public failure, as it was dismantled
due to design failures five years after construction, with only 420 hours of operation
(Musgrove 2010 ). Smaller prototypes like the 370kW mono-blade machine, Monopteros,
had more success, but were noisy and not commercially successful; the program ended in
the early 1990's (Heymann 1998 ) .
In contrast to the large national programs pursued by the United States and Germany,
Denmark's wind development strategy focused on developing a smaller-scale or “market
pull” wind program (Vestergaard et al. 2004 ). This program used engineers and artisans
focused on developing smaller, commercially successful grid-connected wind turbines for
the Danish market. As early prototypes were successful, they gradually increased the
turbine size, with their designs soon dominating early grid-connected wind projects.
6.3 Wind in the United States
Toprovide context forthe Texas andUpper Midwest U.S.case studies, this section outlines
the policy context for wind power development in the United States. The United States has
excellentonandoffshorewindresources;recentstudiesestimateapotential10,000-12,000
GW (thousand MW) of rated capacity, with a gross capacity factor of over 30 percent
(NREL and AWS Truepower 2014 ) , which includes estimations of over 4,000 GW of