Ubaun Central

The Ubaun power plant is located in a hidden valley through which the Zeberia stream runs. It is an uninhabited spot of great natural beauty located three kilometers southwest of Zozaia, the town from which the access track starts. The hydroelectric plant is fed by two streams that flow northwards into the Txaruta mountain range. Next to the powerhouse, the intake of the Mugaire plant can be seen.

Electra Ubaun, the owner business , was established in the orbit of the engineer Miguel Berazaluce, who acted as General Manager. Its main client was the Real Compañía Asturiana de Minas to supply energy to its factories in Guipuzcoa, to the point that Electra would end up becoming its subsidiary. In the 1920s, Electra Ubaun even competed in the tender for the supply of public lighting for the new expansion of Pamplona.

The building is a surprising application of the neo-medieval style to power plant architecture. The configuration of conference room of machines with an attached pavilion of greater height was used to convert the second into a tower of medieval appearance crowned by battlements, under which runs a gallery of pointed arches. The angles of the tower are enriched with buttresses that are prolonged with vertical projections, a solution that is repeated in the rest of the building. All these architectural elements are adorned with moldings that make them protrude slightly, something that provides a certain animation to the ornamental sobriety of the whole. The openings, on the other hand, neither use medieval formulas nor have any decoration. The small conference room of machines counts on each side with two windows of reduced arch, through which we can lean out to the interior and contemplate the two turbines manufactured in 1914.