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How are modern small wind turbines used today? Consider that thousands of Mongolian nomads use modern micro turbines to boil water for tea. Central Americans use small wind turbines to refrigerate fresh fish for delivery to nearby markets. Antarctic explorers use them to power their isolated base camps. The list is long and sometimes surprising. The applications for small wind turbines are limited only by our imagination.

Applications for small wind turbines can be divided into several broad categories: generating electricity at remote sites, producing electricity in parallel with the electric utility, heating, and pumping water.

Generating Power at Remote Sites
Next to their reputation for mechanically pumping water and grinding grain, wind turbines are best known for their ability to generate power off-the-grid at remote sites. They've distinguished themselves in this role for decades. During the 1930s, when only 10 percent of North American farms were served by electricity, literally thousands of small wind turbines were in use, primarily on the American Great Plains. These home light plants provided the only source of electricity to homesteaders in the days before the rural electrification brought electricity to all.

That's not true everywhere. There may be as many as 100,000 small wind turbines in use by nomadic herdsmen in northwestern China. These small turbines (so small they can be carted on horseback from one encampment to another) are the sole source of power available on the Asian Great Plains that stretch from China to the Soviet Union (see Nomadic micro turbine).