Os Peares

Taking advantage of the gorge of the Miño River close to his confluence with the Sil River, the newly-established company “Fuerzas Eléctricas del Noroeste, S.A.” (FENOSA) began in 1947 to build a hydroelectric power plant in the vicinity of Os Peares (amidst Carballedo and Pantón, Lugo, and A Peroxa, Ourense). With a maximum height of 94 m above foundations and a length of 261 m in coronation, the dam of Os Peares regulates up to 150 m3/s carried by the Miño River trough the site with a 159 MW power plant that produces an average of 567 GWh per annum.
On the steep right slope of the river a series of buildings were raised to house to the workers during the construction of the dam and the power plant, constructions that form a true village and that after the entrance in service of the installations in the year 1955, served to lodge to the direction and to the employees commissioned of the exploitation of the power plant. Besides the industrial buildings and the houses for the workers and directors, the village had school, company store, infirmary, cinema, garages and warehouse, and even with a small church projected in 1956 by Antonio Tenreiro Brochón, in which he reflected the new interests of that young generation of architects that initiated his careers in the decade of 1950.
The automation of the hydroelectric power plant tackled by the company in the year 2000 did unnecessary the permanence of the employees in the own location, and the village was being left until remaining totally abandoned.
His current proprietary, the company Gas Natural Fenosa, proposed by the end of the 2010 decade to invest some eight million euro to rehabilitate the village as a training centre, endowed with classrooms, accommodations and service areas to attend annually to more than twenty thousand students. The works begun last September and it is planned that the Os Peares Training Centre can start operation by the end of 2012.