Reconversion of Traditional Water Extraction Windmills in Mallorca to Produce Electrical Power.

Abstract

Traditionally, windmills have been used in the agricultural area of Mallorca (Spain) and especially at Campos area, to extract water from wells and use it for watering.

During the Middle Ages the number of windmills grew. Most of them were for flour although some were also used for water. . From this moment on their growth was spectacular (in Palma there were 36 in 1872, 200 in 1891, 897 in 1951 and 1308 in 1958). There were easily over 3000 in all of Mallorca Island.

With the arrival of electrical mains and the explosion motor, motors that extract water replaced the windmills. Many windmills have disappeared, others are in precarious conditions.

One aspect that hasn’t been dealt with until now is the technical analysis and the project of reconverting these slow rotational speed Machines moved by the energy of air in movement to take advantage of it in obtaining electrical power. The specific objectives that can be summed up as the following:

Reconvert and adapt a technology and means of taking advantage of the wind energy existing on this island, yet forgotten, and introducing the novelty of the production of electricity on a small scale in order to take full advantage of it, save and replace other sources of power in the agricultural sector (lighting, water extraction, watering, climatic adaptation of greenhouses, desalting brackish water, etc.) All of this improving the present visual and environmental impact, given the progressive state of abandonment and deterioration which the 3000 installations of this sort which are calculated to exist on the island of Mallorca and which are object of our attention.