Edison has 89 hydro power plants in Italy (of which 50 mini hydro) with an installed capacity of 1,132 Mega Watt. In 2017 Edison’s plants in Italy produced 2,209 GWh (gigawatt-hours) of electric power.
Edison’s hydro plants are of two types: diversion or run-of-river facilities (which use directly the flow of a river) and impoundment facilities (which use a storage reservoir upstream of the power plant).
Edison’s hydroelectric power plants are representative of our history. The earliest and most important facilities for the production of electric power, inaugurated between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, were indeed hydroelectric facilities in Italy. The most remarkable among Edison’s early facilities are the Bertini, Esterle in Robbiate and Calusco d’Adda power plants, true architectural gems along the Adda River, in Lombardy, Italy.
The Bertini power plant, which was built in Paderno d’Adda between 1895 and 1898, was named in memory of Angelo Bertini, the man who directed its construction and was Edison’s General Manager from 1891 to 1915. When it was commissioned in 1898, with its 13,500 volts of rated power, it was one of the biggest power plants in Europe and had the longest transmission line.
The Esterle power plant in Robbiate (MI), located downstream of the Bertini power plant in Paderno, was built between 1906 and 1914. At the time, it was an extremely powerful facility, capable of generating 30,000 kW, triple the amount of energy produced by the Bertini power plant. It was named in memory of Carlo Esterle, Edison’s Managing Director until 1918.
The Calusco d’Adda power plant, dedicated to the memory of Guido Semenza, was built in 1917.