Smartmolen - digital monitoring for traditional windmills 🌍

When Upminster windmill was restored, the Friends of Upminster Windmill who run the mill realized that they needed a way to monitor the mill. That caused them to develop smartmolen, which is a digital monitoring solution for traditional windmills. It's primarily used to monitor the orientation of mills (such as Upminster) that use a fantail to turn to wind automatically. By using digital sensors installed in the cap, the orientation is determined, and transmitted to the rest of the system that checks how that matches with observed and forecast wind conditions. A live graphical view of the data is shown on the Smartmolen website, and alerts can be sent if there is, or is a risk of, a tailwind situation.

The system won the BAFM Impact Award 2021 in recognition of its benefits for both preservation and visitor engagement. Having been developed specifically for Upminster, the system has now been installed in an increasing number of other windmills, in the UK and mainland Europe.

The system will be demonstrated at the upcoming SPAB Mills conference on 4th October.