«Hydroelectric, photovoltaic, geothermal: something the Municipality of Feltre has to invent because this year we are forced to turn off the street lamps, but it is to be believed that things will not get better in the coming years. We cannot stand still and wait for events ».
The councilor for the environment Tiziana Penco has been thinking about it since the colleagues of the municipal administration set the shock treatment to curb the expensive bills and save the accounts of the Municipality. “I want to have an overall picture of what are the potentials and opportunities that the Municipality can seize in terms of energy production,” says the commissioner. “I do not have the appropriate skills so I want to schedule meetings with technicians and experts with which to make the picture of the situation and check what the Municipality of Feltre can do to make itself a little more independent in terms of energy”.
Penco has no foreclosures, but the first reference that comes to mind is the Salgarda power plant, fed by the waters of the Caorame stream, subject to a back and forth that dates back to a dozen years until the decision in 2012 by the then municipal administration of to close the game by giving up a possible power plant at the Busette di Pullir in partnership with Cesiomaggiore because it was considered too expensive and no longer strategic. A decision that also put the tombstone on Salgarda with a hypothesis of subsequently exploiting the tourist level area with a river park project which, however, was never followed up.
Penco excludes nothing: «We leave no stone unturned. I went to inspect the building that housed the power plant and it is a structure that in one way or another deserves to be recovered. It is a question of understanding whether there is scope for a re-evaluation of its potential for the supply of renewable energy which the Municipality would be in great need. I will ask experts to explain to me if and in what way there is a possibility of recovering the plant while respecting the watercourse and the environment ».
The commissioner for the environment certainly does not want to remain passive on the subject: «In the light of the current situation and future prospects, I believe it is only right that the Municipality of Feltre looks in the short and medium term at how to increase energy production. I am thinking », concludes Tiziana Penco,« not only of hydroelectric energy, but also of a wider diffusion of photovoltaic and geothermal, trying to find financing through grants and tenders ».