The Beauregard dam, which blocks the course of the Dora di Valgrisenche at 1,695 meters above sea level, just upstream from the main town, was completed in the mid-1950s using 430,000 m3 of concrete.
The dam, originally the second largest in the region after Place Moulin, has a symmetrical, double-curved gravity arch structure that rests on both sides of the valley. The plant produces renewable hydropower by connecting to the Avise power plant via an 11,340-meter-long pressurized tunnel diversion channel and a 1,580-meter-long penstock.

Since the acceptance tests in the late 1950s, the dam has experienced increasingly restrictive reservoir limitations due to the presence of a “Deep Gravitational Slope Deformation,” which insisted on the orographic left bank of the reservoir compressing its arch. This type of deformation is not subject to sudden acceleration. In any case, any changes would be promptly reported by the daily surveys. The peculiarity was detected from the very first test reservoirs (1957-1969), so the dam was made safe immediately by minimizing the reservoir, which was projected to be 70,000,000 m3 of water, while up to the start of construction it was just over 2,000,000 m3.

In 2011, the work of reducing the height of the dam by 52 meters not only allowed the structure itself to be upgraded, but also contributed to the preservation of the alpine environment by maintaining the flood lamination function already provided by the reservoir in more than 50 years of operation. The work was completed in 2015. Learn more in the construction site section.
This plant is part of one of the Energy Tours routes.

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