Peter Musgrove has both academic and commercial expertise in wind power from its modern beginnings in the 1970s. He is able to write textbooks or business guides, or indeed an autobiography of experience. In this book he does none of these. Wind power is a fully researched and carefully referenced story to be read page by page as an integrated whole. For the enthusiast, it is a thriller. Yes, he explains the basic mechanical engineering theory of wind turbines and he points clearly to key aspects of technical innovation, yet these academic points (Musgrove was a Reader in mechanical engineering at Reading University) are never dominant as the story progresses.
His story begins in Persia with tenth century drag mills used for irrigation and continues on to lift-force turbines for grain milling, which, with firm evidence, he suggests were first developed in England around 1370. Electricity-generating wind turbines began, he asserts with carefully researched evidence, in Scotland with the Blyth electricity mill of 1887. Professor James Blyth’s work is documented by patents and recorded papers to the Glasgow Royal Philosophical Society, attended regularly by William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. Musgrove admits that this was a very close haul with both the Dane Paul la Cour (later in 1887) and the American Charles Brush (early 1888), both of whom can claim to have established a more impressive heritage. Indeed, we should all thank la Cour for the wind turbine DNA he fathered in modern machines.
The story approaches modern times through the first half of the twentieth century with accounts of small-scale turbines for battery charging in remote locations (most of the USA at that time) and larger scale government-encouraged pre-oil-age projects. These were the early fathers of modern wind power, but they died out as oil took hold. It was the OPEC oil crises of the 1970s that kick-started modern renewables with R&D funding from governments and the European Commission, with the latter being particularly supportive of practical demonstration by international teams from academia and industry. From Reading University, Musgrove was at the heart of this research into wind power with his own vertical-axis turbine designs and political lobbying. This book provides an authoritative and detailed account of these times.
Musgrove describes being a founder member of the British Wind Energy Association in the 1970s, which led to the initiation of the European Wind Energy Association. However, despite exemplary cooperation between UK universities and industry, the UK government and its agencies stumbled in uncertainty and lack of vision. Thatcher’s Conservative government longed for nuclear power and Labour was wedded to coal. This was not the case for the Danes, who remembered la Cour and blended modern technology with proven design concepts to establish, by the 1980s, global leadership of wind power. Musgrove himself moved into industry, joining the UK Wind Energy Group – an experience that now enables him to record in careful detail the growth of modern wind power. From Denmark to California and then to Germany, the industry grew rapidly as institutional support mechanisms underpinned engineering developments. As with the early history of wind power, Musgrove records the modern history in scrupulous detail.
So, what of the present and the future? Musgrove gives quantitative evidence of recent growth and cost trends of wind power, with detailed data from the key countries, including Germany, the USA, China, India and the UK. World capacity of wind turbines in 2008 exceeded 100 GW, supplying more than 1% of all electricity. Exponential growth continues, with an expected tenfold increase by 2020. While the demand for onshore windfarms continues, the new driver is for offshore installations. Recent UK governments have stated a determination for the UK to lead offshore installation, with increasing UK manufacturing and expertise. Again, Musgrove gives details of cost expectations and outlines the form of the technology and locations.
From an engineering point of view, the book is strong on the mechanical aspects of wind turbines, but weaker on electrical and control aspects. Three detailed appendices cover basic mechanical and aerodynamic theory, Musgrove’s own theoretical research on early windmills and characteristics of wind meteorology. The book lists some 300 key reference publications, which join hundreds of more detailed chapter notes and a full index.
Throughout, Musgrove maintains a good read, with the text never muddled or boring. Many books on wind power have been published, but none of this stature and competence for placing the technology as a pillar of our ongoing world economy.
