70年代的石油危机,曾使美国风电业有过短暂的蓬勃发展,当时美国国家航空航天管理局(NASA)和能源部(DOE)资助大型风机研制,是政府支持可再生能源研究与开发计划的一部分,但随后世界石油价格下跌,里根政府削减了可再生能源研究经费,到了80年代中期,在美国曾作为一种大型电力资源寄予关注的风电业,除加州少许风力由外几乎消失殆尽。 实际上,在大型风机研究之初就产生了令人失望的结果。当时风机的设计总是沿用直升飞机和其他航空应用的工程规范,再加上过于乐观的经济预测、难于找到合适的风场和风电并网诸问题,使大型风机的发展裹足不前。 尽管80年代加州发展风力田采用小型、可批量生产和易于安装的风机,试验也招致微言,利用税收优惠而仓促安装的风机常常为劣质的技术设计所困扰,然而加州大型风机的研究者和操作者努力改进风机装置,不懈的努力终见成效。加州风力田目前已具 The oil crisis of the 1970s had caused a temporary boom in the US wind power industry. At that time, NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE) funded the development of large-scale wind turbines. It was the government’s support for renewable energy research and development programs. In part, but after world oil prices fell, the Reagan government cut back on renewable energy research funding. By the mid-1980s, the wind power industry, which was once a major source of electric power in the United States, had virtually disappeared except for a little California wind power. In fact, disappointing results occurred at the beginning of the large wind turbine study. At that time, the design of wind turbines always followed the engineering specifications for helicopters and other aerospace applications, coupled with overly optimistic economic forecasts, difficulties in finding suitable wind farms, and wind grid interconnection problems, which kept the development of large wind turbines in limbo. Although the development of wind farms in California in the 1980s used small, mass-produced, and easy-to-install wind turbines, the experiment also insinuated that wind turbine installations using tax incentives were often plagued by poor technical design. However, California’s large wind turbine researchers and Operators have been working hard to improve the fan installations, and their unremitting efforts have been effective. California Wind Farm now has