Applications and Wind Industry - Wind Energy: Renewable Energy and the Environment - page 216

The 5 years from 1986 to 1990 were primarily consolidation and shakeout within the indus-
try. The tax credits ended in 1985; however, contracts from previous years meant wind turbines
were still being installed in California, but not at the increased pace of the previous 5 years.
There were less than ten U.S. manufacturers in 1990, and only one major manufacturer, U.S.
Windpower.
U.S. federal R&D support for wind energy fell to a low of $8 million in 1988. However, the
Europeans increased their support for wind energy during this period. Japanese companies, espe-
cially Mitsubishi, entered the world market and were determined to be a major manufacturer. Many
of the earlier large-megawatt units were prototypes developed with government funding; how-
ever, by the end of the decade, the development was driven by the market, as those wind turbines
increased in size from the 100 kW units.
Three hundred fifty million dollars, over half of the federal funding for wind energy from 1973
to 1990, was spent on the development of large wind turbines. This program was largely a failure
because the program proceeded to the next stage without fully developing the wind turbines at the
previous stage. Design of wind turbines was much more difficult than the engineers in the aerospace
companies had anticipated, and the aerospace industry was only interested in cost plus government
contracts, rather than developing a commercial product. All the Department of Energy prototypes
were taken down due to failures or because O&M costs were too high.
10.7.2 W IND I NDUSTRY , 1990-2000
World energy production in 1995 was estimated at 5 million MWh/year from over 22,000 wind tur-
bines with an installed capacity of around 4,000 MW. The American Wind Energy Association set
a very optimistic goal for the United States of 10,000 MW by the year 2000. This was not achieved,
although there was a lot of activity in other states outside of California due to the new incentive
of the production tax credit (PTC) for 1990-1995. The PTC was $0.015/kWh for 10 years, with an
inflation factor for wind farms installed in later years. The PTC was extended a number of times;
however, late extension meant hardly any installations during that year.
Sandia Labs managed the DOE program for VAWTs. A 34 m VAWT test bed, 500 kW, was tested
at USDA-ARS, Bushland, Texas, from 1988 to 1998 ( Figure 10.10 ) . The DOE program, managed
by the National Wind Technology Center, NREL, was changed to assistance and R&D for the U.S.
industry to meet the foreign competition through the Advanced Wind Turbine Program [45-47]. Also
in the United States, there was the EPRI/DOE Wind Turbine Performance Verification Program,
which was to provide a bridge from utility-grade development programs to commercial purchases.
The 1995 goal of the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Wind Turbine Program was to develop
wind turbines for class 3 wind regimes (5-5.5 m/s average at 10 m height), which would produce
electricity at $0.03-0.04/kWh, with O&M costs of $0.005/kWh. Another DOE R&D project goal
was for cost of energy from wind of $0.025/kWh or less at sites with 6.7 m/s winds by 2002.
Government regulations and incentives in Europe, especially in Germany, resulted in rapid
expansion of industry and installation of wind turbines. There was more consolidation, and some
manufacturing shifted from Denmark.
The manufacturers of two-blade, light-weight machines went out of business, for example, Carter.
However, prototypes are still being used in testing, and Vergnet in France is selling a commercial
machine. There were not any vertical-axis wind turbines being produced for the wind farm market.
This period was characterized by:
1. Continued rapid growth of the wind industry. Size of wind turbines increased from 200
kW to megawatt size. Countries outside the United States and Europe installed wind farms,
with 1,220 MW installed in India by the end of 2000.
2. European manufacturers dominated the market for large wind turbines.
3. Offshore wind farms were installed in Europe.