We are FCC - Nº12

Five new contracts in Madrid 100% healthy desalinated water as a guarantee of supply in the Canary Islands Bio-contract in Madrid’s Valdebebas WWTP Water treatment as a synonym for development and well-being in Colombia Nearly two million annual visits to the Aqualia.com Aqualia trains Peruvian officials A R+D strategy more aligned to production requirements The company Canal de Isabel II Ges- tión (CYII) has just awarded Aqualia five major Operation and Maintenan- ce (O&M) contracts to manage over 4,300 kilometres of peripheral sewer systems in 37 municipalities in the Community of Madrid. This means providing service to more than 1.2 million citizens. The five new contracts amount to 65.3 million euros, with a duration in all cases of four years, extendable for an additional year. Aqualia will be in charge of ope- rating and maintaining the Val- debebas wastewater treatment plant, which is owned by Madrid City Council and managed by the public company Canal de Isabel II (CYII). The Valdebebas wastewater treatment plant treats over 30,000 m³ of wastewater per day and produces 4,000 m³/day of biogas, with over 80% of its energy being con- sumed by the company itself. The five-year contract, for nearly 14 million euros, will be effective next February. One of the new features of the contract is the installation of a wet biomethane plant to valorize the excess biogas that is currently being burned. The plant will use ABAD Bioenergy® technology, patented by Aqualia, which has been successfully tested by CYII at the La Gavia WWTP in Madrid. Thus, Aqualia will install its first industrial pro- duction plant of biomethane for the automotive industry in one of Madrid’s metropolitan wastewater treatment plants. Aqualia has launched the “100% healthy desalinated water” campaign in the Ca- nary Islands, designed in collaboration with the city councils and the Tenerife Is- land Water Board (CIATF). The campaign, which will run until April, includes extensi- ve communication on various generalist and local radio stations, written and online media, generation of multi- media content, advertising supports such as billboards in various municipalities in the south and west of the island of Tenerife, notices and graphics on bills (paper and elec- tronic), educational and awareness talks in schools and meetings in neighbourhood associations. Aqualia’s CEO and general manager, Felix Parra, spoke at the forum “Water treatment and basic sanitation: a country need”, organised by the Semana publishing group in Bo- gota (Colombia), where he said that “water must be a state policy”. During his intervention, Félix Parra highlighted the PTAR Salitre project that Aqualia is executing in the Colom- bian capital to decon- taminate the Bogotá river and which will mean an important advance in water quality and sanitation for the country. In 2019, Aqualia’s website expe- rienced a significant increase in user traffic (+28%), reaching a total of 1,720,199 visits, 380,000 more than in the previous year. The number of sessions has also grown (34%). Thus, the website has consolidated itself as a very useful service for citizens to make queries and obtain in- formation. The most visited section is Customer Service, which accounts for half of the total page views. Aqualia participated and taught in the workshop “Capacity Building in Desali- nation and Water Reuse” in Lima (Peru). Organised by the Peruvian Ministry of Housing, Construction and Sanitation and by the Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade (ICEX), the course has served to train those res- ponsible for the Peruvian administration in non-conventio- nal technologies for obtaining water resources. Aqualia’s innovation team met at its tra- ditional “Researchers’ Meeting” to sha- re best practices, progress and results in the development of projects and to publicise its lines of work, exchanging results and needs with the company’s production managers. Aqualia currently has a team of 35 professionals to develop 20 projects supported by the European Union, with an overall budget of over 100 mi- llion euros. B R I E F - W A T E R 60 WATER B R I E F