Erstfeldertal power plant produces its first electricity
The Erstfeldertal hydropower plant has started producing electricity. Before that, various project ideas had failed for 100 years. The EWA has now succeeded in completing the power plant in record time. Otherwise federal subsidies would have expired.
In the canton of Uri, a further 7200 households can be supplied with CO2-free electricity. The hydropower plant of the energy supplier EWA at the entrance to the Erstfeldertal started up on Thursday and produced electricity for the first time. "In two and a half years from the first approval step to commissioning is absolutely unique for a power plant of this size," the chairman of the EWA management, Werner Jauch, is quoted in a press release from the EWA.
Before that, a wide variety of studies and projects had been developed for a good 100 years. “They all disappeared back into the drawer,” writes the EWA. And this project, too, “stood on a knife's edge several times”. Speed was now of the essence because in a month's time the national subsidy contributions to the power plant would have expired. That would have failed the project. “We believed it was feasible and we succeeded in putting the power plant into operation more than a month before the deadline,” said Jauch.
Around 45 companies from Uri were involved in the construction, explains Peter Dittli, Vice President of the Board of Directors of KW Erstfeldertal AG . 75 percent of the total investment of 37 million francs remained in Uri as added value. In addition, there would be water interest and tax revenues. And finally, operation and maintenance also secured jobs. All of this is "particularly valuable in economically challenging times," said Jauch. "The corona pandemic shows us how important local production is when the international supply chains collapse very quickly."