Their main advantage is that, by harnessing the power of moving water to produce energy, they do not generate polluting greenhouse gas emissions.

The current climate change and the progressive trend in energy prices, recorded in recent years, lead us to consider, with increasing urgency, solutions that accelerate the energy transition. It is a matter of implementing clean energy production that gradually but constantly replaces fossil fuels. Currently, there are several systems that can be used to exploit renewable energy and many are in place for some time. Among these a leading role is played by hydroelectric plants that affect, in Italy, for just over 17% of the total energy produced and about 40% of the total renewable production.

It was the founder Antonio Beltrame, in the first decades of the last century, to understand that the construction of hydroelectric power plants would allow to feed directly the family steel factory, in a less expensive way than the use of electricity from mains.

Over the years Beltrame built or acquired several power plants. The choice of location was obviously linked to the geographical conformation of Italy, characterized by the presence of the Apennine ridge and the Alps. Thanks to the natural slopes of the soil sufficiently high, it is possible to guarantee the productivity of hydroelectric plants and for this reason they were built for the most part in northern Italy.

With the aim of increasing the supply of clean energy to cover its energy needs, AFV Beltrame Group acquired and subsequently incorporated Idroelettriche Riunite S.p.A., in 2023, company operating in the production of renewable energy for over a century.

Today, AFV Beltrame Group owns 12 plants located in 10 sites between Piemonte and Veneto. These are small and large-scale plants with an average production of 160 GWh/ year of renewable energy, equal to 30% of the energy needs of Italian plants and leading to a reduction of about 36,000 tons of CO ₂ released into the atmosphere.

The incorporation of Idroelettriche Riunite is therefore an important step forward in reducing Scope 2 emissions.

To enhance all this, the company is working with the energy supplier to create an innovative contract that allows the sharing of energy produced by renewable (hydroelectric and photovoltaic) plants with the Italian production plants from 2024

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