The aim under the 2025 strategy is for 100 per cent of Repower’s own production to be generated from renewable resources. For this reason the company is looking into the sale of its combined-cycle gas turbine plant in Teverola in Italy and its long-term contracts with nuclear holding companies. Repower also intends to consolidate and develop its portfolio of hydropower assets, already the backbone of its own generation capacity.
Repower operates its own hydropower plants in Valposchiavo, Prättigau, Surselva and the Engadine in Canton Graubünden. A number of these facilities were recently refurbished. Including participations, installed capacity is around 430 megawatts, and the group’s own hydropower facilities in Graubünden have an expected annual generation of around 1,300 gigawatt hours.
In Corleto Perticara (Basilicata, Italy) Repower owns a wind farm with an installed capacity of nine megawatts. In addition, the company has a 39 per cent interest in the Giunchetto wind park (Sicily, Italy). In Germany Repower owns two other wind installations via its affiliate Repartner Produktions AG: The plant in Prettin (Saxony-Anhalt) has an installed capacity of ten megawatts and the one in Lübbenau (Brandenburg) disposes of 16 megawatts. Repower expects to generate a total of around 90 gigawatt hours of electricity per year with its own wind installations.
Repower works with more than 200 privately and publicly owned generation facilities (mains water turbines, biomass and photovoltaic) to produce its two green power products, Purepower and Solarpower.
In 2009, eighteen months after construction started, the first merchant line built under the new European legislation was commissioned. The 4.4 kilometre-long, 150 kV line, which runs underground for its entire length, joins Campocologno (Switzerland) and Tirano (Italy), boosting north-south cross-border capacity and increasing the security of the electricity supply in both countries. The pioneering project also included building a new switching station in Tirano and a new switch bay in Campocologno. Repower and the other partners involved in the project (Edison and the Municipality of Tirano) have exclusive usage rights for a capacity of 150 megawatts over ten years, which means they do not have to acquire this capacity at auction. The new line is owned by EL.IT.E S.p.a., a company in which Repower holds an interest.
Since the beginning of 2013 the Swiss 380 kV/220 kV transmission grid has been owned by the national grid company Swissgrid. Ownership of the international Bernina line was also transferred to Swissgrid at the same time. Repower built this strategically important north-south line and commissioned it in 2005. It transports around 40 per cent of the electricity flowing between Switzerland and Italy. Repower has secured the contract to maintain the line from 2015 to 2019.
Assuring a secure and reliable supply of electricity to customers requires high-capacity pan-regional and regional distribution grids. Repower owns, maintains and builds power lines with voltages ranging between 0.4 and 150 kilovolts in the Prättigau/Rhine Valley/Davos, Engadine/Poschiavo and Surselva areas of Canton Graubünden. The company also owns and operates the relevant substations, switching stations and transformers.
One of the objectives under the Swiss Federal government’s Energy Strategy 2050 is to increase the generation of hydroelectricity in Switzerland in the long term. Repower has two projects that fit perfectly into this strategy: Chlus (a 62 MW hydropower installation in the Prättigau/Graubünden Rhine Valley area) and Lagobianco (a 1000 MW pumped-storage plant in the upper Poschiavo valley, including the refurbishment and continued operation of existing generation facilities). Nevertheless, the current economic environment makes it impossible to go ahead with delivering these projects at present. Repower will keep them in the pipeline to be able to proceed with construction as soon as the market situation allows.
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