Often, when we think of wind energy, images of the hundreds-of-years-old windmills in Denmark or the Netherlands come to mind. Today, 314,000 wind turbines supply nearly 4% of global electricity. The wind industry is marked by a proliferation of turbines, dropping costs, and heightened performance. In many locales, wind is either competitive with or less expensive than coal-generated electricity.

Onshore wind turbines typically take up no more than 1% of the land area occupied by wind farms. Therefore, grazing, farming, recreation, or conservation can happen on the same land as wind power generation.

Although wind is inconsistent, and at times turbines will not turn, it can be part of a renewable energy system. Investment in 24/7 renewables, such as geothermal, energy storage, transmission infrastructure, and distributed generation, is essential to making the entire electric grid renewable.

The origin of onshore windmills makes for an interesting story. The anti-nuclear movement in Denmark is largely to thank, which led to the country’s decision to abandon the nuclear path in 1985, one year before Chernobyl. This movement also accelerated the emergence of Denmark’s windmill industry. Denmark, with its unique rural industrial development due to the mechanical needs of the farming sector, was well equipped to start experimenting with electric windmill construction in its many small mechanical shops. The first ones were small, with single-digit kilowatt capacities. Every year, their capacities have increased: 30kw in the late 1970s, to 50kW in the early 1980s, and then 75 kW in the mid 1980s. Todays windmills have reached a capacity of 9 megawatts (or 9000 kW) , including the windmills of Vestas, which is one company that emerged from a farm equipment shop in rural Denmark.

The more amazing part of the story is the German counter examples. In the late 1970s, the German government started their wind energy transition with a massive turbine, the “GROWIAN.” Starting big early on failed miserably and the turbine ran for less than 500 hours. But some believe that this failure was by design – to prove to the anti-nuclear audiences in Germany that wind power has no future.

Calculations for this solution are based on the analysis done by our friends at Project Drawdown. You can get more information about this solution and their calculation methodology here.