The restoration of the oldest wind farm in the world, has now reached the home straight and the project, which may have seemed utopian a few years ago, has today, with the help of the people who love their birthplace, become practically feasible.
The restoration of the at one time, upto 10,000 windmills of this ancient wind park, which have become the trademark for the Plateau, is now a reality, with the idea that a mechanical engineer had to use perforated sails and make them more productive.
Mr. Georgos Hatzakis, the mechanical engineer, alongside a long distinguished list of other professional people who are descendants from the Lasithi Plateau area, got together and founded the Agios Georgios Cultural Society of Lasithi, which had the vision to carry out the windmill restoration project.
We have begun a more complete program of restoration of the windmills, which is the sole responsibility of our Society, with the strategic supporter of the Region of Crete and private investors, who want to preserve the cultural heritage of the Plateau”, said Mr. Hatzakis on Radio Crete, talking to Manolis Argyrakis.
“The restoration of the Lassithi Plateau Wind Park will now take place with the use of perforated sails. This is a system which helps to protect the windmills against the strong and destructive winds, which are often a feature of the weather here, using new stronger and more resilient fabric, which will not tear as easily, in those conditions”, Mr. Hatzakis explained.
“The windmills will be productive, extracting water from which the owners will be responsible for its use. In the restoration of each windmill, 50% of the cost is given by our Society and the remaining 50% by the owner. With the full cost reaching around 1,000 euros, that means 500 euros for each party and so far we have completely restored 15 windmills.”
Mr Hatzakis concluded by saying that the target the Society has set, for 2017, is for the restoration of the equivalent of one windmill each day from now on, which will give us a total of 100 this year.
We hope that by 2018 we will have restored about 1,000 windmills, so that by 2018, which is the “Year of European Cultural Heritage”, we will be in a position to claim the grand prize for the restoration of monuments, to Europe’s Cultural Heritage and to apply for membership in the Unesco’s World Cultural Monuments Heritage list.
