The Navisence power station exploits the head of water in the lowest-lying region of the Val d'Anniviers. The licence for the nearly century-old plant at Chippis will expire in mid-2004. The communities concerned decided in June 2003 to continue operation of the power station together with Kraftwerke Gougra AG. This will give rise to a three-stage power station in Val d'Anniviers, with annual production capacity of 560 GWh. As a result, a single entity can now efficiently exploit hydropower all the way down to the Rhone valley and derive maximum value from the energy thus produced.
The Navisence power station in Chippis and the Mottec and Vissoie stages run by Kraftwerke Gougra AG will be consolidated into a single operating unit in May 2004. Water from the Turtmanntal and Val d'Anniviers has been driving the turbines at Navisence for around 40 years, ever since Kraftwerke Gougra AG started up in 1960. This led to numerous points of contact between the two operations. However, separate ownership gave rise to differing interpretations of the basic licencing framework. These have now been resolved: under the new terms, the communities are selling part of their water rights to Atel and Sierre-Energie SA, the local distribution company. They are allotting another share to Kraftwerke Gougra AG, which brings them a 10% stake in the plant as a whole.
By acquiring the water exploitation rights, energy services provider Atel is increasing its production from the Gougra power station by more than 100 GWh per year. Atel will in future hold a 54% stake in Kraftwerke Gougra AG.
Aare-Tessin Ltd. for Electricity Corporate Communications