Emergence of Wind Energy: The University of Massachusetts - Wind Power for the World: The Rise of Modern Wind Energy - page 544

24.2 Significance of the First UMass Wind

Turbine, WF-1

Because of the paucity of actually existing wind energy converters,
Heronemus proceeded to develop a relatively small wind turbine,
which would be useful in and of itself and which would also serve
as a platform to investigate the technology for larger turbines
of the future. This turbine was known as WF-1 (short for Wind
Furnace-1) and was conceived of as the core of a residential wind
heating system.
The WF-1, designed and constructed at UMass between 1973
and 1976, ended up being historically one of the most significant
wind turbines from that era. Although small by modern standards,
at the time of its completion in 1976 it was the largest operating
wind turbine in the United States. In many ways, the WF-1
has heavily influenced the entire modern global wind industry:
the first generation of American wind-energy engineers was
trained by working on its design and operation, and many of the
WF-1's innovations appear in modern turbines. Today's “mature”
wind turbine design bears what was once new on the WF-1:
three fibreglass blades, near-optimal blade shape, blade pitch
regulation, variable speed operation, and computer control.
The WF-1 could be considered the first “modern” US wind
turbine, and in many ways it was more advanced than many
later models of the late 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s. By Robert
Righter's reckoning,

2

the WF-1 marked the beginning of the
modern wind-electric era. Earlier wind-electric generators included
small generators such as the Jacobs Windcharger, as well as larger
models (some purely experimental), such as the Brush turbine,
the Russian Balaclava (1930s), the Smith-Putnam (1930s), the
Danish Gedser (1950s), and the German Hütter turbines (1960s).
The WF-1 was the forerunner of the turbines built by US
Windpower of Burlington, MA. US Windpower went on to become
the largest and most successful (for a while) wind turbine
manufacturer in the United States. US Windpower eventually
became Kenetech Windpower. Many of Kenetech's assets were
acquired by Zond Systems, in turn purchased by Enron Wind, and
then finally purchased by General Electric, which is now the major
wind turbine manufacturer in the United States.

2

Wind Energy in America , University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.