Environmental Engineering Reference
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electricity needed to become independent from the grid led to the
design size of a 53 m rotor diameter 2-bladed horizontal-axis
turbine with a rated power of 1 250 kW. The Putnam turbine was
built from 1940 to 1941 and operated for four years until a blade
sheared of during operation in March 1945.
7
Figure 5.6
Smith-Putnam wind turbine, the world's first MW-size wind
turbine in 1941, installed in Grandpa's Knob in Castleton,
Vermont, USA (Photos: NREL/DOE).
Other nations similarly invested in the development of
large-scale experimental turbines. Turbines of sizes greater than
100 kW were developed in the 1950s and 1960s in England,
Germany, Denmark, France and Russia. In particular, Ulrich Hütter,
a member of the Stuttgart University's German Air and Space
Laboratory, became involved with both theoretical and experimental
work to pursue the development of wind energy technology based
on science. His notable practical experience included a 10 kW
turbine that was built and ran from 1950 to 1960 and a subsequent
100 kW turbine which ran intermittently from 1961 to 1966.
His work on the aerodynamics and blade design for wind energy
would become an important aspect of the worldwide wind energy
technology development in the 1970s including the Danish history
to be discussed.
Despite the eforts of Hütter, Putnam and others, in
particular Johannes Juul who will be discussed later, the use of
wind turbines for commercial electricity generation was not fully
7
The account of Putnam's turbine is provided in detail in his topic
Power from
the Wind
(1948).
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