In 1988, Don Quixote would have been at home on Cape Clear, Ireland’s southernmost island, for two 84 giant windmills suddenly challenged all comers. Erected on the island’s highest hill, 533 feet above sea level, they breathed in the Atlantic winds for all they were worth, and immediately established themselves as both an environmentally harmonious and functioning power and a dramatically visible symbol of the island.

And they were part of a potentially revolutionary prototype, the first system in the world to integrate windmills, a computer control system, back-up diesel generators, and battery storage to help out with the shift from windmills to generators whenever the wind dropped below Force 3.

German-made, these windmills provided roughly seventy percent of Cape’s electricity. Quite a change for an island that earlier than 1974 had no electricity whatsoever and now had become a case study for other countries investigating alternative energy.

For an outpost into the Atlantic like Cape, I then thought, what a natural way to harness horsepower, put it between the shafts of such giant beasts. What a way to live properly in your environment. But within several years, to the island’s dismay, Ireland’s Electricity Supply Board decided not to take over, as originally planned, this EU- and German-initiated project.

If only Don Quixote rather than the ESB had been tilting at Cape’s windmills, they’d still be working rather than standing forlorn, one without a blade, the other still turning but without a purpose, both symbols of neglect. Fortunately several other islands now utilize the integrated wind energy system developed on Cape.

Chuck Kruger comes to us from Cape Clear Island, Ireland. The Weather Notebook is produced with funding from the National Science Foundation and Subaru of America. We are a program of the Mount Washington Observatory, on the web at www.mountwashington.org.