The first wind turbine used for the production of electricity was built in Scotland in July 1887 by Prof James Blyth of Anderson 's College, Glasgow (the precursor of Strathclyde University). Blyth 's 10 m high, cloth - sailed wind turbine was installed in the garden of his holiday cottage at Marykirk in Kincardineshire and was used to charge accumulators developed by the Frenchman Camille Alphonse Faure, to power the lighting in the cottage, thus making it the first house in the world to have its electricity supplied by wind power. Blyth offered the surplus electricity to the people of Marykirk for lighting the main street, however, they turned down the offer as they thought electricity was "the work of the devil. '' Although he later built a wind turbine to supply emergency power to the local Lunatic Asylum, Infirmary and Dispensary of Montrose, the invention never really caught on as the technology was not considered to be economically viable.
when was wind energy first used to generate electricity
1887