Spain’s Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has published on its website the provisional resolution of the first call of the PERTE for the digitalisation of the water cycle, granting aid for a total amount of 200 million euros for the improvement of the digitalisation of the urban water cycle.
A total of 30 projects have been selected with aid ranging from 3.3 to 7.9 million euros per project, which will benefit 1,676 municipalities in 16 autonomous communities with a population of 14,742,016 inhabitants. The aid will benefit projects dealing with water management, both in large cities and small rural municipalities, which have submitted grouped projects.
The beneficiaries have been operators of urban water supply, sanitation and treatment services of various types, such as local authorities, public and mixed companies and representatives of the private sector.
The projects - selected on a competitive basis, in accordance with the principles of article 8.3 of Law 38/2003, of 17 November, on General Subsidies - stand out for their high technical quality and their contribution to the achievement of the PERTE objectives of digitalisation of the water cycle.
The actions financed respond to cutting-edge and strategic initiatives that will improve efficiency in the use and management of water in Spain, such as the real-time sensor of catchments in the public water domain, the control of consumption through the implementation of smart meters, the reduction of drinking water losses, the real-time control of wastewater treatment plants and discharges into the public water domain, the creation of digital twins and the mathematical modelling of hydraulic networks and systems that allow the use of artificial intelligence, real-time monitoring of wastewater treatment plants and discharges into the public water domain, the creation of digital twins and mathematical modelling of hydraulic networks and systems that enable the use of artificial intelligence for system management, as well as the implementation of platforms that integrate the entire water cycle and support sustainable management of water resources and transparency in water management. In addition, comprehensive projects will be financed that will implement drought and flood action plans.
A total of 30 projects have been selected with support ranging from 3.3 to 7.9 million euros per project
After a period of 10 days to receive allegations and the reformulation of the projects, the final resolution of the call will be made in the first half of November 2023 and the deadline for completion of the projects will be 31 December 2025, with the possibility of an extension until 1 June 2026 at the latest.
In addition, the second call for PERTE grants for the digitalisation of the urban water cycle has been published for an amount of 200 million euros. The grants will range from 500,000 euros to 10 million euros per project generally, the amount varying according to the number of inhabitants of the municipalities in which the actions take place.
The deadline for submitting applications for this second call for applications is 13 December 2023. The first PERTE call is also open for irrigation digitalisation projects which, with an initial investment of 100 million euros, will enable efficiency in the use of water, fertilisers and pesticides in the projects that are finally selected nationwide.
Work is also being carried out on other PERTE lines of action. So far, more than 750 million euros have already been mobilised at different stages of processing, to which the planned calls will be added once the Addendum to the European Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan is approved.
