ABSTRACT
From the mid-1970s, the USA adopted a high-tech aerospace approach to wind power development, with the emphasis on increasingly large complex prototypes like the 2.5-MW Boeing/NASA ‘Mod 2’ series. Germany and Sweden also embarked on similar projects. When the UK started up its own wind programme in the early 1980s, it adopted a similar approach. After building a smaller 250-kW prototype, a large 3-MW machine was built on the Orkney islands off the north of Scotland by the Wind Energy Group. This eventually cost around £17 million.
