Growian
Growian or GROWIAN (short for German "Große Windenergieanlage" - "Large wind turbine") was a publicly funded wind turbine built in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog near Marne for purposes of technology testing in the 1980s. It was a two-bladed "lee runner" (the rotor was situated on the downwind side of the tower) with a hub height of about 100 metres (330 ft). For a long time Growian was the world's largest wind turbine. Many features of the installation were novel and had not previously been trialled a...
The partners as well as the BMFT also had political motives connected with the project. Günther Klätte, management board member of RWE, stated during a general business meeting: “We require Growian [in the general sense of large wind turbines] as a proof of failure of concept”, and he noted that “the Growian is a kind of pedagogical tool to convert the anti-nuclear energy crowd to the true faith”.[6] A similar statement regarding the incurred financial burdens was reported of Minister of Finance and former Minister of Research Hans Matthöfer: “We know it won’t do anything for us. But we do it to demonstrate to the wind energy advocates that it doesn’t work.”[6] After the Green Party had derided the installation as the electricity provider’s “fig leaf” on the occasion of groundbreaking in May 1981, the RWE took internal measures to make sure that publicly a position of open-mindedness towards alternative energy production was emphasized while public interest in wind energy was allayed.
Insuperable structural load and material problems occurred, not least due to the two-bladed lee runner configuration. The installation turned out to be a failure in most respects, spent substantially more time under repair than up and running, and was not even capable of sustained test operation. When it was decommissioned it had only logged a total of 420 hours in active operation.[5]
Growian is regarded as one of the largest failures in the history of wind power and was unable to fulfill any of the expectations riding on its conception. What few insights were gained found little application in wind turbine construction. Some lessons were however learned from conceptional mistakes made in its construction, e.g., the futility of trying to reach profitable installation sizes without taking intermediate steps.[5]
The last point is one of the things expanded on in this short video. The video is also a nice history of wind energy:
History about Nordex and other wind turbines, Growian test facility