The Water and Waste Management Consortium of La Rioja in northern Spain has awarded ACCIONA the operation and maintenance services of a number of supply, sanitation and treatment facilities in the northeast part of the region under the denomination of ‘Rioja Alta Oja batch’.
This batch includes around fifteen wastewater treatment plants in the region, among them Ábalos, Briones, Ezcaray. Haro, Leiva, San Asensio, Tormantos… plus a drinking water plant (‘ETAP Oja’, in Ezcaray). The plants have a joint annual capacity of 14,800,308 m3 and are part of the 177 treatment stations in the region of La Rioja: 86 treatment plants, 20 pumping stations and 88 septic tanks capable of treating between 50 and 60 million m3 of wastewater per year. The ETAP Oja will supply a total of 1,704,406 m3 of drinking water to all the municipalities in the subsystem.
The contract for the project -which will run for 48 months- is for €7.1 million. In the event of it being extended for a year, for which there is provision in the contract, the figure will rise to €8.945 million.
The tenders awarded include major commitments in the reduction of the carbon footprint of the services, such as the implementation of a series of photovoltaic solar energy installations to cover a part of the electricity consumption of the wastewater treatment plants, the use of electric vehicles and the installation of charging points, or a commitment to use electric power of renewable origin when it is not generated on site. These environmental aspects had considerable weight in the evaluation of the tenders.
