{"id":43232,"date":"2016-10-15T17:27:24","date_gmt":"2016-10-15T16:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/2016\/10\/perpetuum-mobile-el-hierro\/"},"modified":"2016-10-24T11:34:53","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T10:34:53","slug":"perpetuum-mobile-el-hierro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/2016\/10\/perpetuum-mobile-el-hierro\/","title":{"rendered":"Perpetuum mobile in El Hierro"},"content":{"rendered":"

What was once regarded as technically impossible and the stuff of science fiction is slowly becoming reality.\u00a0 The westernmost of the Canary Islands considered the end of the known world\u00a0 until the voyage of Christopher Columbus proved otherwise is now set to become the first in the world to have all its energy needs covered from renewable sources.\u00a0 La Gorona del Viento (translated roughly as the Wind Stable) is an ingenious project to harness the locally constant winds to operate a hydro-electric station that will provide a permanent supply of energy to the 7,000 inhabitants of the island.<\/p>\n

\"Barbados

Barbados 50 Odyssey boats in Puerto de la Estaca<\/p><\/div>\n

Participants in the first fleet of the Barbados 50 Odyssey were treated by the Tourism Board of El Hierro to a tour of the island that included a visit to the various sites of the Gorona del Viento project.<\/p>\n

\"Alberto

Alberto Casta\u00f1eda of Gorona del Viento describing the workings of this ambitious project<\/p><\/div>

\"Pascal

Pascal translating Alberto’s comments over the noise of the water turbine.<\/p><\/div>

\"The

The turbine hall<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

The basic concept of the project is to use the prevailing NE winds to produce electricity with five wind turbines (maximum capacity 11.1 MW) either to supply electricity directly for domestic use (estimated at 7.4 MW per day) or to drive a bank of pumps that will lift the water from a lower reservoir 700 metres to the higher reservoir.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Graphic

Graphic rendition of the Gorona del Viento project<\/p><\/div>\n

When either the wind turbines do not produce enough electricity or the consumption is too high, the difference is made up by producing electricity with a bank of water turbines. \u00a0On three separate occasions this year, the project covered all island\u2019s needs, once for as long as 72 hours.<\/p>\n

\"Young

Young visitors at the lower reservoir with the turbine hall in the background<\/p><\/div>\n

The rest of the tour was taken\u00a0 up by stopping at some of El Hierro\u2019s main attractions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"View

View from the top<\/p><\/div>

\"Barbados

Barbados 50 kids happy to stretch their legs ahead of the passage to the Cape Verde Islands<\/p><\/div>

\"The

The distinctive Dragon tree, endemic to the Canaries<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

The unanimous decision among the sailors, who perhaps more than anyone else, are well aware of the utmost importance of using renewable sources of energy, was that El Hierro\u2019s project is a remarkable model for the rest of the world\u2026 to be hopefully repeated soon on a much larger scale.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Another

Another El Hierro first- free wifi even in this remote spot of the island. Marinas in other parts of the world- take note!<\/p><\/div>

\"El

El Hierro’s Puerto de la Estaca soon to host Europe’s westernmost marina<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was once regarded as technically impossible and the stuff of science fiction is slowly becoming reality. The westernmost of the Canary Islands considered the end of the known world until the voyage of Christopher …<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[193],"class_list":["post-43232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neues","tag-klimawechsel","odd"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43232"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43365,"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43232\/revisions\/43365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornellsailing.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}