Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Together with the National Science Foundation (NSF) NASA
developed the US Federal Wind Energy Program which was adopted
in 1973. NASA was responsible for development and testing of
large wind energy plants. Unfortunately, their interest in Hütter's
system came too late—the W-34 was no longer available. At least
Sepp Armbrust was able to unearth the plans and construction
documentation and they were sold to NASA for USD 55 000.
It was no coincidence that Hütter's system served as the model
not only for the first wind turbine developed by Westinghouse under
the American wind energy program, a 100 kW system with the name
MOD-0 that went into operation in 1975. All other big American wind
turbines built in the 1970s and 1980s by companies such as General
Electric and Boeing were clearly influenced by Hütter's fundamental
philosophy.
Hütter had some consulting contracts with NASA and later also
with the aircraft manufacturer Boeing. However, soon to retire, he
felt less and less desire to teach the basics to engineers on the other
side of the Atlantic Ocean. “I'm not going to nurse the kindergarten
of wind energy by myself,” his former assistant Dörner remembers
Hütter saying. Instead Hütter sent Dörner “across the ocean”, who
thus experienced the wind energy revival close-up.
Finally when the oil price shock had reached Europe the
University of Stuttgart too resumed activities for wind energy
research. This new phase was triggered in 1974 by a call from the
German Ministry of Research and Technology (BMFT) to the wind
power experts in Stuttgart. At BMFT people were in the process of
preparing the “General Energy Research Program” for the coming
four years, which was meant to analyse non-nuclear energy sources
so far unused. One item to be subsidised was the “Exploration of new
energy sources for large-scale technological application” and one of
these was wind energy.
The Ministry invited the engineers to a meeting. So Hütter and
Dörner went to Bonn, then the capital of the Federal Republic of
Germany, to answer the questions of the government official Alois
Ziegler. “How many megawatts can you deliver with that wind power
of yours,” was the first question the civil servant asked. Hütter
reported on his experience with the W-34 and proposed to take a
leap into the scale of one hectare rotor surface. He had a liking for
grand figures. This swept area equalled 112.8 m rotor diameter and
Hütter thought technologically this was taking it to the limits but
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