1973 RANN Symposium Sponsored by the National Science Foundation

In reviewing the current status and potential of wind energy, Ronald Thomas and Joseph M. Savino, both from NASA’s Lewis Research Center, in November 1973 presented a paper at the Research Applied to National Needs Symposium in Washington, DC, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The paper reviewed past experience with wind generators, problems to be overcome, the feasibility of wind power to help meet energy needs, and the planned Wind Energy Program. Thomas and Savino pointed out that the Dutch had used windmills for years to pro­vide power for pumping water and grinding grain; that the Russians built
a 100-kilowatt generator at Balaclava in 1931 that feed into a power net­work; that the Danes used wind as a major source of power for many years, including the building of the 200-kilowatt Gedser mill system that operated from 1957 through 1968; that the British built several large wind generators in the early 1950s; that the Smith-Putnam wind tur­bine built in Vermont in 1941 supplied power into a hydroelectric power grid; and that Germans did fine work in the 1950s and 1960s building and testing machines of 10 and 100 kilowatts. The two NASA engineers noted, however, that in 1973, no large wind turbines were in operation.

Thomas and Savino concluded that preliminary estimates indicated that wind could supply a significant amount of the Nation’s electricity needs and that utilizing energy from the wind was technically feasible, as evidenced by the past development of wind generators. They added, however, that a sustained development effort was needed to obtain eco­nomical systems. They noted that the effects of wind variability could be reduced by storage systems or connecting wind generators to fos­sil fuel or hydroelectric systems, or dispersing the generated electricity throughout a large grid system. Thomas and Savino[1497] recommended a number of steps that the NASA and National Science Foundation pro­gram should take, including: (1) designing, building, and testing modern machines for actual applications in order to provide baseline information for assessing the potential of wind energy as an electric power source, (2) operating wind generators in selected applications for determining actual power costs, and (3) identifying subsystems and components that might be further reduced in costs.[1498]