Iren Energia: 'In Piedmont forward with 300 million investment plan'

"We are moving forward, overcoming appeals. We have presented a 300 million project-financing plan for a 30-year concession for our seven expired, and extended since 2010, derivations in Piedmont. With this, we will bid in the spring, as announced by the region'. Giuseppe Bergesio, managing director of Iren Energia, traces the company's path on the hydroelectric front, specifically in the Orco Valley, where it manages the Agnel-Serrù-Villa, Ceresole-Rosone, Telessio-Eugio-Rosone, Valsoera-Telessio, and Rosone-Bardonetto plants, and on the Po where it has the La Loggia-Moncalieri and Po Stura-San Mauro plants. That's 262 MW of installed capacity. They are part of an overall asset of 620 MW: the multi-utility has another 100 MW in Campania, in Cilento, which will expire in 2029, and the remaining capacity also in Piedmont, in Val di Susa, but expiring after 2030.

"Being the operators of half of the hydroelectric capacity expired, we have in recent years initiated talks with the public body and proposed the plan, choosing the option provided by the law of project-financing, which in the tender phase will also give us the right of pre-emption as well as the possibility of aligning ourselves with the best offer," the manager recounts. This very passage had been contested by the Bolzano-based operator Eisackwerk, with an appeal that was rejected at the time by the Higher Water Court.

"The plan has already been declared to be of public interest, after two service conferences. We will realise the investments in the first 10 years of the new concessions. Together with the Turin Polytechnic, we have calculated that the amounts will generate a total of 750 million in investments in the area, including allied industries, achieving a multiplier of 2.5, with VAT revenues of 100 million and an employment plan that envisages at least 30 direct jobs,' Bergesio continues. The objectives? "Increasing production by 10-15%, maintenance, multiple use of water resources, safeguarding the territory and aquatic systems, but also supporting employment and tourism," he replies.

There are also plans to build pumping plants, which Iren Energia already has in Venaus and Telessio, with the construction of new basins.

"Seven 86 million cubic metre reservoirs are the main batteries that store water on an ultra-seasonal basis," Bergesio recalls: "Climate change is a fact. The drought of 2022 was epochal and aggravated the energy crisis caused by gas prices in the same year. We had no water to produce: the irrigation consortia downstream of our plants asked us for support, which we did not fail to provide and thanks to which the harvest was possible. Energy production was half the annual average of the last decade. Not to mention the shutdown of thermoelectric plants that could not be cooled. Or the effects on the tourist industry, which was certainly not attracted by the empty Ceresole lake. After the crisis, initiatives aimed at building reservoirs have multiplied, it is important to continue'.