People have been harnessing the wind for thousands of years in the forms of boat sails and wind mills to grind grain. It has only been in the last couple of centuries that wind energy has been used to manufacture electricity. Recent events such as the discovery of the impact of greenhouse gases on the earth's atmosphere and the realization that the fossil fuels that we heavily rely on are getting more scarce and expensive, have led to a resurgence of the interest in wind energy solutions.

Wind turbines come in all sizes, from those with rotors measuring a few feet across (often used for battery charging on sailboats or vacation homes) to those with rotors hundred of feet in diameter (used to generate "bulk" electricity that is fed into the utility transmission and distribution system). Turbine subsystems include:

• a rotor, or blades, which convert the wind's energy into rotational shaft energy
• a nacelle containing a drive train, usually including a gearbox (some turbines operate with a gearbox) and a generator
• a tower, to support the rotor and drive train
• electronic equipment such as pitch control, electrical cables, ground support equipment and interconnection equipment

Utility-scale wind systems typically generate electricity at lower cost - as low as 3-7 cents per kilowatt-hour. Most regions of the U.S. are served by "power pools" of utilities that join together to generate electricity and transmit it to where it is needed. The name "power pool" is an apt one - electricity coming from many different sources (a cold-fired power plant, a hydro plant, and others) flows into a "pool" from which it is distributed to thousands of end users. A power pool can easily absorb the electricity from a wind plant and add it to all the rest. Wind plants could be installed in many parts of our country, providing income, jobs, and electricity for homes and businesses.1

1 Wind Energy Fact Sheet retrieved on September 12, 2006 from http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Wind_Energy_How_does_it_Work.pdf