ABSTRACT
Having in mind the serious technical problems in converting the wind energy directly to electricity for the consumers, I thought that wind energy could be efficiently exploited in an indirect way. Windmills could pump and store water that could then be used from small hydro units. I was already familiar with small hydropower generation as I had been head of the division for the refurbishment and maintenance. I had also served as director of a group of five hydropower stations in the Greek power utility, the Public Power Corporation (PPC). Water pumping by wind was an established and simple technique. A successful example was the Lasithi Plateau on Crete Island, with more than 12 000 windmills in the 1960s for water pumping and irrigation. This was one of the first examples of mass exploitation of wind energy worldwide.
