Partner 15: VERZASCA S.A.

Verzasca SA is a very small hydropower company based in Lugano (Switzerland). It is owned by the Canton Ticino (1/3) and by the city of Lugano (2/3). It exploits hydropower resources from the Verzasca Valley.

The artificial reservoir is contained by the Contra dam (or Verzasca dam), a 220-meter high arch hydroelectric dam. It was constructed between 1960 and 1965. The dam forms the Lago di Vogorno, an artificial reservoir retaining over 100 million cubic meters of water. The Verzasca SA is builder and owner of the dam. The 80-year concession owned by company is set to expire in 2046. The production plant is located in a cavern, 200m underground where 3 Francis machines produce yearly 230 GWh. The company currently counts 13 employees.
By the way, the dam leases access to a commercial bungee jump operator. The opening scene of the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye was filmed there.



Dr. Marco Bertoli (born 1953) is an Electrical Engineer. He completed min 1977 a master study at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich-Switzerland and a Phd (Dr. sc. techn ETH) in 1982 at Institute of Biomedical Engineering of the ETH and University of Zürich. In 1983 he spent a year as a Post-doc at San Diego State University (USA). Since 1994 he is General Director and technical manager of Verzasca SA, Lugano-Switzerland. Before joining the Verzasca SA he was between 1986 and 1994 Project Manager at the AGIE, Industrial Electronics Ltd. (Losone, Switzerland). He was responsible for the definition and realization of a new family of numerical controls (CNC) for the electro erosion machining with sub micron precision.