ACCIONA strengthens its presence in Italy and will manage Sardinia’s water treatment

It has been awarded the management, overseeing, control and maintenance of close to 200 water treatment plants and almost 500 pumping stations.

The contract is worth 32 million Euros.

ACCIONA Agua has been awarded a contract for the management, overseeing, control and maintenance of 165 water treatment plants and 494 pumping stations supplying 70% of the population of Sardinia, more than 1.1 million people. The total amount of the contact awarded is for 32 million Euros and ACCIONA will provide employment for 183 people. Among the elements valued in the ACCIONA proposal stand out its approach to energy efficiency, which will allow a reduction of 25% in energy consumed. The contract, which is for three years, had been put out to tender by the state-owned company Abbanoa.  The awarding of the tender is the most important by volume for ACCIONA Agua in Italy in the last ten years

Luigi Patimo, ACCIONA Country Manager in Italy, and who is responsible for all the company's divisions in the country, showed his satisfaction and stated that "this contract means taking on the water treatment service of two-thirds of the island and is strategic looking to the future liberalisation of Sardinia's integrated water service, which will be put out to tender next year; furthermore it is the biggest contact obtained by ACCIONA Agua in Italy in the last ten years."

To date, ACCIONA has 41 projects in the Italian market in various stages of development, for drinking water as well as sewage treatment, providing service to 2.5 million people. The sector offers many more business opportunities after the historic passing of what is known as the Ronchi Decree (due to the surname of the minister who promoted it), which establishes the progressive privatisation of municipal infrastructures and services in the country.

Project diversity

The company has built, operates and maintains the Reggio Calabria desalination plant, and is currently working on increasing its capacity up to 25,000 m3 a day. It has also built the Beneventana Servizi and CAP Milano desalination plants (a total of 11,200 m3 a day).

ACCIONA also operates and maintains the Simbirizzi water purification plant in Sardinia (120,960 m3 a day) and has built the water treatment plants of Menta River Dam in Calabria (129,600 m3 a day) and Pedra Maiore, in Sardinia (64,800 m3 a day).  

In the water treatment segment,  ACCIONA Agua has restored, operates and maintains the Cagliari water purification plant in Sardinia; besides running and extending the two Bari water purification plants in Puglia (188,000 m3 between them), and has built and currently runs the  Scicli (Sicily) water purification plant, with a capacity of 12,000 m3 a day.

ACCIONA will also design and extend the water treatment plant in Grottaferrata (Roma) as a temporary joint venture with another company, with a budget of 4.7 million Euros.

Other activities

ACCIONA Infraestructuras has demonstrated that it is especially active on Italian soil. Thus, it obtained the construction of a stretch of the High Speed Train line with 6km of double tunnels which enter the Bologna Station; the extension of the Fiumicino airport, in Rome; or the building of the wholesale market, also in the capital.

ACCIONA Energía has two wind farms in Italy with a total installed capacity of 71.4 MW: at Cocullo (Abruzzo) and Isola I (Calabria).