Muppandal Wind Farm

முப்பந்தல் காற்றாலைகள்

Giant turbines turning where the hills let the wind through

Move across the photo, or drag it on a phone, to look around.

You arrive

The highway bends toward the hills and the first turbines appear, then more, and soon they are standing on every side, taller than anything else in the landscape. The wind is why they are here, and you feel it as soon as you open the car door. It tugs at the door, your hair and your clothes. Above you the long blades turn with a slow, even sweep, and palm trees bend beneath them.

Muppandal Wind Farm · Photo: Deepa vasudevan · CC BY-SA 4.0

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Among the towers

Find a safe place to stop off the road and look up. From close by, the scale of a turbine is hard to take in, and the blades seem to move more slowly than they really can. The wind off the sea funnels through gaps in these hills, which is why this particular landscape was chosen. Stay away from gates and private land, and be careful of the fast traffic on the highway.

Muppandal Wind Farm · Photo: UY Scuti · CC BY-SA 3.0

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The view toward the hills

Turn your back on the road and look across the fields of towers toward the last of the Western Ghats. The combination is strange and rather beautiful: rock, palm trees and modern machines all sharing the same strip of land. Late in the afternoon the light picks out each tower against the hills. Listen for the low whoosh of the blades beneath the sound of the wind itself.

Being here

You see

Rows of white turbines above palm trees, against dry hills.

You hear

Constant wind with a slow whoosh of blades above it.

You smell

Dust and dry grass carried on the wind.

You feel

Strong, steady wind pressing against your whole body.

Look around

The story

Muppandal is a small village where wind from the sea gusts through gaps in the hills. Legend says the poet Avvaiyar arranged a marriage here and invited the rulers of the Chera, Chola and Pandya kingdoms; each king put up a pandal, and the name, meaning three pandals, came from that. Modern fame arrived with the wind farm, which brought electricity to the village and made it a showcase for India's clean energy programme. Wikipedia still describes it as among the largest onshore wind farms in the world, though such rankings change. The old pass nearby was once known for armies; today it is known for what the wind can do.

Sources: Wikipedia: Muppandal

Close by

Fort

Aralvaimozhi Pass and Fort

The old gateway into Travancore, where the wind whispers

Town

Thovalai Flower Market

Jasmine by the sack, sold before the day gets hot

Waterfall

Ulakkai Aruvi

A twin-tiered forest waterfall on the Pazhayar

Forest

Suchindram Theroor Wetlands

Winter water for birds at the end of their flyway

Sidhagiri Murugan hill temple, Aralvaimozhi · Photo: Manukrishnan80 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Continue the journey