21 Mar
Sadly the British press is all too keen to highlight the down side of Tenerife but there are some exciting cutting edge projects that don’t get the praise they deserve. Just this weekend a village of 25 self sufficient bioclimatic houses was inaugurated at ITER in Granadilla. This is the first of its kind in the world and www.canarygreen.net was there to cover the event.
The project was initiated 14 years ago and attracted 397 entrants from 38 countries, since then the planning and development has taken place largely unnoticed by many visitors to this holiday island. ITER (the Institute of Technology and Renewable Energy) is best known for the towering wind turbines alongside the TF1 motorway, just past the south airport. That is just one aspect of the amazing scientific work that goes on at the 400,000 square metre site. One of the largest fields of working solar panels in the world feeds into the Tenerife grid, a water park studies ways to utilise wave power, and a wind chamber studies wind power and is also used by sports companies to explore aerodynamics.
The Canary Islands are in a unique position to experience the good and bad of weather systems so it seems only natural to build knowledge from these to benefit everyone. ITER is also home to one of the most respected seismic teams in the world, they not only monitor Mount Teide but are frequently summoned to volcanic hot spots around the globe to offer their expertise. This is no secret research base, ITER are committed to sharing their knowledge among the scientific community and also welcome visitors to their coastal base.
If you want to join a tour of ITER you can pre arrange it by calling 922391000 or go to the website www.iter.es. If you want to keep up with environmental issues around the Canary Islands keep an eye on www.canarygreen.net
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View more photos on Canary Pr Flickr Account