Inventions & Discoveries · Energy and power
Wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. The first to generate electricity was installed by the Austrian Josef Friedländer at the Vienna International Electrical Exhibition in 1883: a Halladay wind motor 6.6 m across, whose 3.7 kW drove a dynamo that charged batteries. James Blyth lit his holiday home in Marykirk, Scotland, with one in July 1887, and Charles F. Brush built the first automatically operated wind turbine some months later. A 100 kW forerunner of modern horizontal-axis machines ran at Yalta in 1931, and by 2024 turbines generated over 1,136 gigawatts.
On the inventions tree
- First known
- 1883
- Where
- Vienna
- Credited to
- Josef Friedländer
NoteWind had powered machines since the windwheel of Hero of Alexandria and the vertical-axle windmills built in Sistan from the 7th century; Friedländer's machine of 1883 was the first to generate electricity.
See also
Cite this entry
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Wind turbine. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/wind-turbine
- MLA
- “Wind turbine.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/wind-turbine. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Wind turbine.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/wind-turbine.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Wind turbine’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/wind-turbine (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻