V.O.F. Hagenwind

Good to know

• Mill
• 4 kmfrom Aalten center
• Wheelchair accessparking lot
• Parking
• Aalten

A wind farm, not a windmill

It is worth setting expectations straight: the address at Nijhofsweg 10 in Aalten is the business office of V.O.F. Hagenwind, the energy company, rather than a restored mill you can step inside and tour. The turbines themselves stand spread out across the surrounding countryside in the Aaltense Goor area, near the boundary with the neighbouring municipality of Oost Gelre. This is operational renewable-energy infrastructure, run by a small team, and there is no historic millhouse, no visitor exhibition and no ticketed experience attached to it.↗↗↗

The technology is modern rather than picturesque. All eight machines were built by the German manufacturer Enercon to its E-82 model, each standing around 100 metres to the blade tip and together giving the farm an installed capacity in the range of 16 to 20 megawatts. Seen from the fields below, their slender white towers and slow three-bladed rotors create an almost rhythmical line on the skyline that changes character with the weather and the angle of the sun.↗↗↗

Built and owned by local farmers

Hagenwind began life as a community venture. The partnership that built it brings together a dozen farmers and technicians from Aalten and the nearby town of Lichtenvoorde, several of whom own land on which the turbines stand — which is why the company's name carries the legal form V.O.F., a Dutch general partnership. The plans date back to 2000, and more than seven years of permitting and procedural steps passed before the first blades turned, despite little organised opposition from people actually living in the area.↗↗

When the wind farm was officially opened in September 2008 it was celebrated as a milestone: the first such park in the eastern Netherlands and, at the time, the largest anywhere in the country away from the coastal strip and the reclaimed polder regions. Its construction cost around 24 million euros, and it was designed to produce 35 to 40 million kilowatt-hours of electricity every year — enough to cover the household needs of about ten thousand homes in the region.↗

Seeing the turbines in the landscape

The best way to take in Hagenwind is to move through it. The Achterhoek is a gently rolling patchwork of farmland, hedgerows, farmsteads and cycle paths, and the turbines sit out in the open so that they are visible from the country roads and lanes running between Aalten and Lichtenvoorde. Stopping at a lay-by or a quiet junction to look along the row of rotors turning above the fields is essentially how visitors experience the site — a photo opportunity and a sense of scale rather than an attraction you enter.↗

The park keeps growing, too. By 2021 the company behind Hagenwind had drawn up plans under the banner 'Hagenwind 2.0' to add a further seven to ten larger turbines around the existing eight, with the aim of concentrating a smaller number of taller machines in the area. So the cluster you see today may look noticeably different, and more ambitious, the next time you pass through.↗

Getting to the Achterhoek

Hagenwind lies in a rural border region of the eastern Netherlands, between the towns of Aalten and Lichtenvoorde and close to the German frontier around Winterswijk. The nearest rail links serve the small border towns, so the area is easiest to explore under your own steam — by car, or by bicycle once you have reached one of the villages. The landscape here belongs to the Achterhoek, a name that means, roughly, 'the corner behind' the floodplain of the river, and the wide skies and flat-to-rolling fields make that river boundary a useful reference for travellers.↗↗

Practical information

The office at Nijhofsweg 10, 7122 PZ Aalten is a working business address; the dedicated website hagenwind.nl has been limited in content, so plan on viewing the farm from the public countryside rather than booking a visit. Contact for enquiries can be made through the number listed on the business profile, but there are no published opening hours, admission fees or guided tours, because this is an operating energy facility and not a museum.↗↗↗

For visitors with limited mobility, the business location is recorded as having wheelchair-accessible parking, which is convenient if you want to stop at the address to get your bearings before heading out to see the turbines from a viewpoint road. Remember that the machines stand on farmland, so always stay on public paths and roads and respect the surrounding fields, gates and livestock.↗