Historical Development of the Windmill - Wind Turbine Technology: Fundamental Concepts of Wind Turbine Engineering - page 43

Figure 1-22. The Smith-Putnam wind turbine, c. 1941 — the world's irst megawatt-
scale wind power plant. (a) Shop assembly of the 53-m rotor. The individually-hinged
blades have stainless steel skins. (b) Operating atop Grandpa's Knob, near Rutland, Vermont,
this power plant supplied up to 1.25 MW of AC power to the utility system. [Voaden 1943;
Putnam 1948; Koeppl 1982]
rebirth of wind power. When the so-called “fuel crisis” of the 1970s caused worldwide
shocks that demanded that concrete attention be paid to alternative energy sources, wind
power was in the forefront because its technology was already relatively advanced. But we
must now end this history of the windmill and move forward to the evolution of modern
wind turbines.