Historical Development of the Windmill - Wind Turbine Technology: Fundamental Concepts of Wind Turbine Engineering - page 41

“The earth's reserves of fuels, solid and liquid, are rapidly being exhausted, and
whatever be the hopes, splendid but distant, that give rise to the study of
radioactivity of matter, this suspended threat to our economic life merits the
attention of every thinking person”
One of the irst steps in the development of large-scale wind power plants for electric
utility applications was taken in Russia in 1931, with the construction of a 100 kW 30-m-
diameter Balaclava wind turbine , on the Black Sea (Figure 1-21). Although its blades
had rough surfaces and some of its gears were made of wood, it ran for two years or more
and generated 200,000 kWh in that time [Sektorov 1934].
Figure 1-21. The 100-kW, 30-m diameter Balaclava wind turbine in 1931. It was the
irst wind turbine interconnected with an AC utility system. [Sektorov 1934]