After a good bike tour I googled a bit around as the topic is highly interesting and geographically rather close as there quite a bit of hydro plants around.
Projekt Obervermuntwerk II gives you a nice overview of another pump storage project in the Alps. In this case it is located in Vorarlberg, in the westernmost part of Austria, in some sense a rather Swiss place.
The video is of course in German. I already posted the video link about the impressive Kopswerk II pump storage project.
The direct impact on the alpine landscape seems to be very low indeed and it is exactly the project I had in mind when I wrote about increasing the efficiency of already existing infrastructure. Two quite big lakes 300m of altitude get linked together giving the utility 21% more installed 'turbine' capacity and even 36% more 'pump' capacity. (Kopswerk II was another big pump storage project)
I think there should be an considerably bigger growth in net generated & storaged energy as more and more renewables get connected to the grid. From a business point of view such companies seem to have a wide competitive moat around them as such places and plants are scare and in high demand with a limited supply. Maybe I will take a look at their numbers, we will see.
ENEL, which stock price has done decently well since I bought it* only a month or two ago has short blog entry about the pump-storage plants in Italy, but seems to have forgot to add some...
P.S: Wiki to the rescue: 'Die Vorarlberger Illwerke AG ist ein sterreichisches Energieunternehmen mit Sitz in Bregenz. Mehrheitseigentmer ist mit einem Aktienanteil von 95,5 % das Land Vorarlberg.' So practically no real way to invest into it.
I got them at 2.75 now they are around 3. Mind you they could fall a lot. Nobody knows. But compared to their value, especially the asset part they seem still priced very low. But to repeat it again, nobody knows for sure.
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