The Wasserfall Power Plant was initiated by the commercial traveller, Josef Gamper, and Father Mantinger, the village priest. It
was put into operation by an electricity cooperative in 1908, thus making it one of the first cooperative plants in South Tyrol. It supplied the municipality of Parcines with power. The water used by the power plant was diverted from a little above
Parcines waterfall from the Zielbach and reached the plant via a tailwater and high pressure pipe.
As, during the fascist period, the cooperatives had been dissolved, the power plant was transferred into the ownership of the municipality of Parcines after the war.
In 1957 a second power plant was erected on the Salten. As, however, over the course of the years, the output and production of the two plants no longer satisfied demand in the municipality, a further power plant was built. The new Birkenwald hydroelectric plant was inaugurated in 2012. It replaced the Wasserfall Power Plant, which was then decommissioned.
The Board of Trustees for Engineering Heritage considered the old Wasserfall Power Plant to be an engineering monument worthy of preservation.