At the beginning of the 1980s, more than 2.6 million people lived in Castile and León. In the latest available records, which date from 2024, the population of the largest autonomous community in Spain does not reach 2.4 million. This decrease of 8% contrasts with the increase in the Spanish population, which, in the same period, has been 35%. The rural exodus, the lack of qualified job opportunities in the area, the global drift towards macro-cities, administrative centralism and a lower supply of services and leisure activities than in more populated areas, are some of the usual reasons that are usually put forward in the diagnosis of this problem that seems to be accelerating.
Faced with the risk to the municipalities concerned of losing residents, a decline in habitability due to the loss of basic services and shops, and acute ageing, in recent years social movements have emerged calling for action to be taken to make the future of towns and cities isolated from the country’s major economic circuits more hopeful.
One of the greatest challenges, if not the greatest, is the need to provide qualified jobs that are well paid, secure and localised in these areas. This attracts individuals and families with good purchasing power, which leads to an exponential growth in the number of services required, and therefore offered, in these areas. One of the possible and innovative solutions to slow the depopulation of Castile and León is that proposed in the SHAREDH2-SUDOE project. Thus, Capital Energy and Alkeymia play an essential role in promoting self-consumption of energy as a tool for the development of rural environments. In this project, the focus is on the creation of local energy communities that, through green hydrogen, can take advantage of the surpluses generated by photovoltaic installations for self-consumption.
The Bembibre Energy Community is a good example of the possibilities that public-private collaboration offers in this respect. This agreement provides the opportunity to install a system for producing hydrogen using solar energy. With this initiative, the energy consumers involved will be able to benefit from a more competitive and sustainable energy supply, with a reduction in operating costs and contributing to the energy self-sufficiency of the area.
These actions not only reduce the carbon footprint and directly improve the efficiency of energy consumption, but also provide the area with a direct and tangible economic boost. By facilitating, democratising and reducing the cost of access to renewable energy, it becomes more attractive for new industries to set up in the area, which means an improvement in terms of creating skilled jobs and an incentive for people to settle in the region. Green hydrogen is a demonstration of Capital Energy’s commitment to an equitable, innovative and sustainable energy transition.
Hydrogen as a response to depopulation. Opportunity for the rural environment.
The extraordinary need for land to carry out the projects on which Alkeymia focuses its activity, the synthesis and commercialisation of green molecules, is an invitation to settle in rural environments that are victims of depopulation. Thus, with initiatives such as HyBERUS, which has just been recognised within the aid programme Valles de Hidrógeno, dependent on the IDAE, with an award of 138 million euros, Alkeymia presents itself as a strategic and key player in the sector. HyBERUS is the result of the union of Pilar, a project that aims to convert green hydrogen into green ammonia, and Pilatus and Sophya, in which the final result is green methanol from green hydrogen. Located in Caspe, Fabara and Ascó, in the provinces of Zaragoza and Tarragona, they hope to contribute to reducing local depopulation as well as bringing economic and social benefits to the region.
This action will lead to the creation of new jobs, both direct and indirect, with a significant percentage of them requiring qualifications, the need for services (from educational to recreational) in the area, an improvement in the quality of available housing, as well as other promising consequences that will develop during the construction and operation of the project.
