KfW IPEX-Bank finances Gemeinschaftskraftwerk Inn

KfW IPEX-Bank is financing the Gemeinschaftskraftwerk Inn (GKI) hydropower plant operated by Tiroler Wasserkraft AG (TIWAG). The bank provided financing in the amount of EUR 90 million in January 2020, and is now increasing this amount with a further EUR 90 million. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is also involved in the financing with EUR 150 million. Total investment costs amount to around EUR 620 million.

The GKI on the Upper Inn River in the Austrian-Swiss border region is the largest and first run-of-river power plant to be built in the Alpine region for many years. The project has been assessed by the nature conservation authorities of Austria and Switzerland as well as KfW IPEX-Bank, and will generate around 440 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity from hydropower annually once it goes into operation at the end of 2022. This makes the GKI plant between the Swiss municipality of Valsot and the Austrian municipality of Prutz a milestone in the European energy transition.

The GKI plant’s core feature is its weir, which dams the Inn River over a length of approximately 2.6 kilometres in an area along the Austrian-Swiss border. From here, water flows through a 23.2km-long headrace tunnel to the powerhouse in Prutz/Ried. This is where the water then drives two turbines, with two generators creating a total output of 89 megawatts of hydroelectricity. When the power plant is put into operation, around 440GWh of electricity per year will be transmitted via an underground cable to the neighbouring transformer station of the Kaunertal power plant and fed into the public grid from there.

KfW IPEX-Bank’s participation is supporting the energy transition as well as a major European infrastructure investment.