The water always played a central role for the processing of silk raw materials in Gersau as route of transportation and an energy supplier. Early they recognized that the two village brooks in Gersau are very good and reliable energy suppliers. This possibility to use water power was the decisive point, why Josef Augustin Reding settled its silk-processing industry in Gersau and not in Schwyz. Owing to this water power the mechanization of the silk production was fast developed. With the building of the first silk factories 1846/47 in the "Eggi", 1859/60 in the "Bläui" and 1861 at the lake "Seefabrik" water power of the village brook was used for the first time directly with the help of a transmission belt drive for silk production.

At the beginning of the 20th Century the first high pressure water turbine with generator was installed in the "Bläui" factory, which supplied till to the 40'er years three-phase alternating current for the machines. 1941 decided Walter Camenzind senior (†1964) to cover the risen power requirement with a new modern high pressure pelton turbine of Bell (Luzern) and a synchronous engine of BBC (Zurich). This machine supplies till today economical three-phase alternating current for the silk spinning mill. Since more than 100 years our enterprise uses the water from the brook to produce clean renewable electric power.

After more than 60 years of runnig time, in March of 2010, our hydro-electric power plant has been replaced. The new turbine, the generator, the electrical connections and the pressure pipe has now an efficiency increase of 25% in comparison with the old plant from 1944. With the new plant we are able to produce a majority of the electric consumption of the spinning mill and save almost 100 tons of CO2 per year.