Introduction - Wind Energy Meteorology: Atmospheric Physics for Wind Power Generation - page 3

1.2 Overview of Existing Literature
No monograph which is solely devoted to the meteorological basics of wind
energy generation is known to the author apart from a WMO Technical note on
''Meteorological Aspects of the Utilization of Wind as an Energy Source'' which
appeared in 1981 and did not anticipate the size of today's turbines. There is a
larger body of literature on winds and turbulence in the atmospheric boundary
layer appearing in many monographs and journals, but only a smaller number of
these papers make reference to wind energy generation (see, e.g., Petersen et al.
1998a , b ). On the other hand there are already many topics and papers on wind
energy generation itself. These existing topics mainly concentrate on technical and
engineering issues and cover the wind resources in just one or a few chapters.
A very recent example is the second edition of the ''Wind Energy Handbook'' by
Burton et al. ( 2011 ). Chapter 2 of this topic summarizes wind speed variations,
gusts and extreme wind speeds, wind speed prediction, and turbulence within 30
pages. Likewise, Hau in his topic on ''Wind turbines'', published by Springer in
2006, summarizes the wind resources in its Chap. 13 in 34 pages. A monograph on
the special field of wind speed forecasts is ''Physical approach to short-term wind
power prediction'' by Lange and Focken 2006 , which was published by Springer in
2006.
1.3 History of Wind Energy Generation
Mankind has always used the power of the wind for its purposes. This started with
the separation of chaff from wheat and other cereals and the air-conditioning of
buildings in subtropical and tropical areas. Winds were used to maintain fires and
to melt metals. Sailing ships were invented in order to travel over the seas and to
establish trade relations with remote coasts. The nearly constantly blowing winds
in the subtropical belts of the Earth are still named ''trade winds'' today.
Wind mills date back at least 2000 years. Heron of Alexandria, who lived in the
first century AD, is said to be the first to have invented a wind-driven wheel. His
machine was merely used to drive organ pipes (Brockhaus, vol. 24, 2001). Wind
mills in Persia are said to have existed from the seventh century AD (Neumann
1907 ) or from the tenth century (Brockhaus 2001). Those were cereal mills with a
vertical axis (Hau 2000 ). The first wind mill in France is mentioned in 1105
(Neumann 1907 ). From there, this technology spread into England, where the first
ones arose in 1140 (Neumann 1907 ). They appear in growing numbers in eastern
parts of England and Northern Europe in the thirteenth century, e.g., 1235 in
Denmark. The climax of this development is found between 1500 and 1650 when
the arable surface of the Netherlands could be extended by 40 % due to the use of
wind-driven drainage pumps (DeBlieu 2000 ). The first German wind mill is said to
have been erected in Speyer in 1393 (Neumann 1907 ). About 100,000 wind mills