Wind machines were used in Persia as early as 200 B.C. Wind machines were later introduced into the Roman Empire around 250 AD. However, the first practical windmills were built in Iran around 700 AD. These were vertical axis windmills (VAWM), which had long vertical drive shafts with rectangle shaped blades. Made of six to twelve sails covered in reed matting or cloth material, these windmills were used for various task such as draw up water, and milling grain and sugarcane.
By the 14th century, Dutch windmills were in use to drain areas of the Rhine River delta. In Denmark by 1900 there were about 2500 windmills for mechanical loads such as pumps and mills, producing an estimated combined peak power of about 30 MW. The first known electricity generating windmill operated was a battery charging machine installed in 1887 by James Blyth in Scotland, UK. The first windmill for electricity production in the United States was built in Cleveland, Ohio by Charles F Brush in 1888, and in 1908 there were 72 wind-driven electric generators from 5 kW to 25 kW. The largest machines were on 79 ft towers with four-bladed 75 ft diameter rotors. Around the time of World War I, American windmill makers were producing 100,000 farm windmills each year, most for water-pumping. By the 1930s windmills for electricity were common on farms, mostly in the United States where distribution systems had not yet been installed. In this period, high-tensile steel was cheap, and windmills were placed atop prefabricated steel towers.
A forerunner of modern horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) energy generator was in service in USSR in 1931. This was a 100 kW generator on a 100 ft tower, connected to the local 6.3 kV distribution system. It was reported to have an annual capacity factor of 32 per cent, not much different from current wind machines.
The first utility grid-connected wind turbine operated in the UK was built by the John Brown Company in 1954 in the Orkney Islands. It had an 18 meter diameter, three-bladed rotor and a rated output of 100 kW.
