Picote II will be built on the Douro River, which runs through the north-west of Spain and the north of Portugal and, after its 900 kilometer long journey, flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Porto. It is part of a national plan that helps Portugal to intensely build up its generation capacities from renewable sources. This plan comprises the expansion of wind energy by 2,000 MW through 2020. In order to stabilize the grid despite volatile supply from wind power, the same amount of new hydro and additions of capacity through rehabilitation of existing hydro power plants will be built in parallel. The main focus of this hydro development lies on storage plants such as Picote I and II, but also on pumped storage power plants that help storing huge volumes of energy in their headwater reservoirs.

Picote II will be built in a cavern, 125 meters into the mountain, and is the first hydro plant to be built within the new national energy plan. It will add up to Picote I and - after its commissioning in fall of 2011 - increase its total capacity by 125 per cent.

Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation is a Group Division of Voith and - with a workforce of around 3,000 employees and an order intake of more than 1 billion Euro in the past business year. Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation belongs to the world-wide leading companies for hydro power equipment.

Voith is setting standards in the markets paper, energy, mobility and service. Founded on 1 January 1867, and nowadays with approximately 37,000 employees, a turnover of 4 billion Euro and more than 270 locations worldwide, Voith is one of Europe’s large family-owned companies.

Voith is an official partner of the initiative “Germany - Land of Ideas.”