Table 1 History of windmills from 200 BC to the present
Time | Location | Description and results |
|---|---|---|
200BC | Persia (IRAN) | Generally, windmills were used in Sistan region of modern Iran. They were used to grind grains [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14] |
Seventh century | Middle East | In the Middle East, windmills were used to supply food. Then, merchants and the Crusaders transferred the idea to Europe [10, 15] |
Eighth century | Europe | The general principles of constructing Asian vertical axis windmills were established in Europe in the eighth century A.D. [5, 7] |
Twelfth century | Northern Europe | Windmills were used for drainage of river deltas, land reclamation and manufacturing. Wind power formed the core of rural economy until the beginning of the industrial revolution [10, 11, 16,17,18,19,20,21] |
Nineteenth century | The United States | Windmills were constructed in the United States during the nineteenth century. They were used to pump water into farmlands and later to generate electricity for homes and industries. The industrial growth resulted in the decline of windmills [4, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16,17,18,19, 22] |
Twentieth century | – | The traditional wind power application expanded to encompass electricity production after the 1973 and 1979 oil crisis [4, 13, 14, 18, 19, 22,23,24] |
Twenty-first century | – | By the end of the twenty-first century, new energy infrastructures will definitely undergo significant changes. The future changes, which would include renewable energy resources, could help man achieve prosperity and health [8, 13, 25, 26] |