The harnessing of wind as an energy source has a long history. One merely has to look at the sailing boats that used its power to traverse seas. Wind has also been used to mill grains and to pump water. The Netherlands were the homeland of windmills in Europe - and even now the variations on post mills, with four sails placed on wooden or walled buildings, are one of the country's main symbols and tourist attractions. Today, in Europe it is Denmark that leads the way in wind energy, along with Germany and Spain.

The importance of windmills decreased with the arrival of steam machines, followed by electric engines, and the advent of the steam and electricity era. Only in the late 19th century was the first wind turbine producing electric energy constructed. Charles Brush erected the first such construction to produce electricity in his own garden, using it to illuminate his mansion. Although wind is a free energy source, the electricity generated was too expensive owing to the high costs of building a turbine. The wind-generated electricity could not compete with the power from a fossil-fuel power station, whose availability did not depend on the weather.

Modern wind energy began to develop in the 1970s, when the oil crisis made it necessary to search for alternative energy sources. The beating heart of the sector was in California, home not only to strong winds, but above all to inviting tax breaks as well as the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA), which meant that energy had to be bought from small producers. The Californian wind craze acted as an incentive for innovative solutions in Europe. Wind farms were built in California, but the technology was Danish.

Denmark had a wealth of “wind” traditions, out of which technological ideas grew. By 1987, 90% of the new wind turbines installed in California were Danish-produced (Yergin 2011: 1146).

In the early 1990s, energy prices began to drop, tax breaks were scrapped, and the wind industry collapsed. Its renaissance began in the second half of the decade, following protests from environmentalists, and its growth is helped by demands for reduction of CO2 emissions.