Jussarö Lighthouse (

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

: ''Jussarö fyr'', Finnish: ''Jussarön majakka'' or ''Jussaaren majakka'') is a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

situated on the

skerry A skerry ( ) is a small rocky island, or islet, usually too small for human habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low stack (geology), sea stack. A skerry may have vegetative life such as moss and small, ...

of Sundharu, approximately south of the island of Jussarö, outside

Raseborg Raseborg (; , ) is a town in Finland, located in the southern coast of the country. Raseborg is situated in the western part of the Uusimaa region. The population of Raseborg is approximately , while the Raseborg sub-region, sub-region has a popul ...

, in the western part of the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland (; ; ; ) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and Estonia to the south, to Saint Petersburg—the second largest city of Russia—to the east, where the river Neva drains into it. ...

. The lighthouse is more correctly called the Sundharu Lighthouse, to distinguish it from an earlier one located on Jussarö itself, which the current structure replaced. The first illuminated lighthouse in the area was built on Jussarö in the late 1880s, along with the accommodation and service buildings for the lighthouse keepers and

pilots An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators because they are ...

and their families. This lighthouse was lit in 1891. There were, however, structural and technical problems with its operation, for which reason a new lighthouse was built on the uninhabited Sundharu skerry to the south of Jussarö, and lit in 1922, when the old light was deactivated. The new Sundharu Lighthouse was the first in Finland designed to be automatically operated from the outset. The light source was gas (

acetylene Acetylene (Chemical nomenclature, systematic name: ethyne) is a chemical compound with the formula and structure . It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is u ...

), with a tank large enough to only need refilling once a month. In 1984, the gas-lit source was replaced with one powered by a

wind generator A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each ye ...

, and a

solar panel A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

was added in 1999.

References

{{Authority control Lighthouses in Finland Buildings and structures in Uusimaa Lighthouses completed in 1922 Water transport in Finland Raseborg