New Books in Economic and Business History Marianna Dudley, "Electric Wind: An Energy History of Modern Britain by Marianna Dudley" (Manchester UP, 2025)
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Mar 14, 2026 Marianna Dudley, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Humanities at the University of Bristol and author of Electric Wind, traces Britain’s long love affair with wind. She discusses early wind-electric experiments, meteorology and Orkney tests, 1970s counterculture sustaining wind expertise, privatization’s role in commercial turbines, offshore complexities, and community ownership as an alternative model.
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Electric Wind Was Born Inside Industrial Modernity
- Modern electric wind emerged from 19th-century inventors who combined traditional wind technologies with new electrical systems.
- Innovators like William Blythe and Charles Brush experimented by attaching wind machines to emerging electrical grids rather than opposing fossil-fuel systems.
Meteorology Made Wind Power Possible
- Understanding wind required meteorological science because wind is variable and unpredictable, delaying reliable turbine deployment.
- Britain ran a national wind survey mid-20th century; Orkney and coasts emerged as prime sites after land-based wind was systematically mapped.
Orkney Hosted Britain’s First Grid-Connected Wind Test
- Orkney hosted the 1951 100 kW test turbine connected to a local public grid as a contained experiment.
- Strong storms in 1952 repeatedly damaged turbines but proved wind could feed a national grid in the right place.
