Gilbert Planche, the father of hydroelectricity
© DR
In the centre of L’Argentière-la Bessée stands a bust with the finest pair of moustaches in the whole of the Ecrins country. The monument celebrates both the visionary and an extraordinary industrial saga.
Gilbert Planche came to L'Argentière as a building contractor in 1888, his head full of ideas and his pockets full of bottles. These he used to measure water flow, under the suspicious gaze of the local population. He soon came to the conclusion that he could produce low-priced electricity by using the motive force of the water rushing down the mountainside. It was a revolutionary concept, a whole century in advance of present-day ideas on clean and renewable energy.
Gilbert Planche was responsible for most of the hydroelectric constructions in the Ecrins: his power plants and pipes are still in use. The key element in his system is the penstock built to deliver water to the L'Argentière plant: a gigantic cylinder which carries the waters of the Durance and the Gyr rivers, harnessed high up in the mountains, over a distance of 16 kilometres. It is now part and parcel of the Ecrins landscape. It forms a arch over the Durance gorge above Vallouise, culminating at the vertiginous height of 100 metres!
The bust of Gilbert Planche, erected after his death in 1924, still gazes in the direction of the penstock and the power plant. To think that the people of les Ecrins almost had this engineer with his funny bottles locked up – they thought he was a spy at the service of the German Kaiser!
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Topic : Art and cultural heritage
Published on : 2008/12/23
Tags : pioneer hydroelectricity
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