aventron confirms its growth ambitions in hydropower and sells its minority stake in the French SME and family-owned company UNITe.

Hydropower is one of aventron AG's three renewable resources for electricity generation in Europe and the origin of the company. The company is consistently pursuing its development initiative to further expand hydropower as part of its diversification strategy. At the end of 2017, the portfolio of hydropower plants divided between Norway, France, Switzerland and Italy had a total capacity of 32 plants with 74 MW. By the end of 2018, aventron had already increased the cumulative output of the hydropower portfolio to 105 MW with 39 plants, including plants under construction or about to be constructed. For example, a new 1.4 MW power plant was commissioned on the Parma River in Italy at the end of 2018. In Norway, a number of approved construction projects are under implementation, including the 9.3 MW Kjerringnes project, the Group's largest hydropower project to date. In Switzerland, contracts for aventron's participation in the future Palanggenbach power plant (2.8 MW) in the canton of Uri were signed at the end of 2018. By the end of 2020, the aventron Group is expected to expand its hydropower portfolio in the aforementioned countries to around 120 MW. This will give the resources of water, wind and solar a more balanced representation in the portfolio.

In France, the aventron Group sold its minority interest in the French family-owned company UNITe, which specialises in renewable energies, in order to focus even more on the direct management of majority-owned power plants. To this end, an operating team specialised in hydropower generation was set up in France to manage the operation of the existing fleet internally and to support the development and acquisition of further small hydropower plants. The aim is to optimise the performance of the portfolio while strengthening internal capabilities.