Hornillos de Cerrato: Harnessing wind power for a brighter future
Tertulia, vol. 63
Hola. This is Barbara, your guide to the latest cultural news from the Spanish-speaking world. I am back from my summer vacation in beautiful Northern Spain. There, I learned about a small village, Hornillos de Cerrato in the province of Palencia (Castilla y León) that received an award this year for showing how a small town can benefit from the good management of the wind energy parks in its area.
A place in empty Spain
Hornillos de Cerrato is one of the many villages that form what has become known as «Empty Spain» («la España vacía»). As I explained in a previous post, this term is often used to describe the depopulated rural regions Spain’s urban migration has left behind. Hornillos de Cerrato shows the same demographic development as many other villages in the rural areas of Spain. While in 1950 it reached a peak population of 528 inhabitants, the population size steadily decreased until 2011, when only 118 people remained.
However, the negative trend was reversed. Have a look at the current development with data since 1996 only in the graph below. According to the INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadística) the new positive trend suggested by the graph above is still intact with currently 171 inhabitants.
In its history, Hornillos de Cerrato dedicated its economic activities mostly to subsistence farming and its gypsum mines. Those had been exploited from 1914 to 1988 when they got closed because they were depleted. Otherwise, Hornillos de Cerrato is mostly known because Queen Juana stayed 4 months in 1507 in the village when she accompanied her husband’s famous funeral cortege across the Iberian peninsula from Burgos to his final resting place in Granada.
A new path forward: Investing in wind farms
One of the central drivers of Hornillos de Cerrato’s rejuvenation is its windpark strategy. At a time when many rural areas struggle with ageing populations and a lack of economic opportunities, this village has embraced renewable energy as a means of economic revival and sustainability. The Hornillos de Cerrato wind parks are a tangible example of how rural areas can leverage natural resources to generate clean energy and a source of income and employment for the local community. Wind energy, which has rapidly grown as a renewable resource in Spain, offers enormous potential for rural areas with favourable geographic conditions.
Since 2007, Hornillos de Cerrato has been living with wind power. It currently has 7 ACCIONA Energía wind farms in the Cerrato area, with a total installed capacity of 214 MW. Made up of 10 Nordex wind turbines, the newest wind farm Celada Fusión started servicing in 2022. This project alone represented an investment of more than €45M. Its turbines are impressive in size, with a capacity of 4.8 MW and an annual production of 13,600 MWh each. This makes the wind farm capable of producing enough clean energy each year to provide 36,000 families with electricity. It furthermore contributes to the decarbonisation objectives of the Spanish electricity mix avoiding the yearly emission of 60,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. The park offset the energy used for its construction in less than nine months. This includes the manufacture of all equipment and the extraction of raw materials.
Wind power acceptance in general is mostly controversial because some tend to see it as a force transforming natural landscapes into industrial sites. In Hornillos de Cerrato, acceptance is nearly unanimous.
This is how their mayor Ignacio Valdeolmillos Marcos, a member of the conservative Partido Popular, defends the windpark strategy of his village using moral argumentation methods:
I travel to Madrid. Do the M-30, the M-40, skyscrapers, or the cement monoliths of dams in the valleys not have more impact? City dwellers want everything to be intact when they go to the village. But we also want to live. Electricity is necessary! (the quote is taken from the English-language article “Villages of Spain reborn by the wind” in La Vanguardia, 29.07.24, written by Antonio Cerrillo)
The facts prove that the debate is not a binary one in which the cities are on one side and the villages on the other. The operator of the wind farms has to take the potential negative impact on the landscape into consideration: The wind projects in the municipality care for and protect the fauna and scrubland vegetation by adjusting the location of the wind turbines in the surroundings of the installation. The visual landscape impact was reduced by integrating the installation into the environment through restoration and revegetation actions. The community has also learned from previous mistakes. Wind turbines built too close to the village in earlier years were removed.
Sustainable economic benefits
Thanks to the increase in funds resulting from the wind farm, new services and jobs have been created, such as a taxi service to take the elderly to the doctor. The village also subsidizes fibre or electricity of residents. School children receive 100 Euros for books and school supplies. New facilities such as a swimming pool, a padel tennis court, a mini-golf, or zip lines have been created. Thanks to the regular income from the taxes the wind farm operators pay they can all be maintained in the long run. This article has an overview of all benefits that became possible by the steady and sustainable income flows from the wind farms first and subsequent new economic activities, like a restaurant or a shop. There is, unfortunately, not yet a regular bus service to Palencia.
Furthermore, the income flows may help the community to preserve its cultural heritage. It is planned to open the old gypsum mines for visitors and to recover Juana’s passage through the small town for educational and touristic purposes.
The EOLO award as recognition
In recognition of its efforts to integrate wind energy into the local economy while preserving the rural character of the area, Hornillos de Cerrato was awarded the EOLO Integración Rural 2024 prize. This award, given by the Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE), celebrates municipalities that have successfully integrated wind energy projects with positive social, economic, and environmental impacts.
The award is not only a symbol of the village’s success but also of the growing acknowledgment that rural areas can lead Spain’s transition toward renewable energy. Hornillos de Cerrato's project stood out for its harmonious balance between innovation and tradition, demonstrating that rural Spain is not condemned to decline, but can instead be a beacon of sustainability and modernity. It also shows that rural areas can play a critical role in spain’s economic and environmental future. The way out of la España vacía is not through abandonment, but through renewal.
This is all for today. May the positive winds of change reach more destinations. Do you have more examples where renewable energies have helped to revitalize a town or district? I’d be happy to hear about them in the comments.