- The contract is worth 22 million euros
- The Cañaveralejo wastewater treatment plant, one of the largest in Colombia, avoids the discharge of 150 tons of waste per day into the Cauca river, benefiting 180 municipalities
ACCIONA Agua has been awarded the contract to upgrade EMCALI's Cañaveralejo wastewater treatment plant, in Cali (Valle del Cauca, Colombia). The contract, worth 75,000 million pesos (about 22 million euros), comprises the design and detailed engineering, construction and commissioning of the upgraded facility, to be completed in 25 months.
ACCIONA will carry out a detailed survey of the concrete and of the vulnerability of the facility's water-related structures; the company will also repair, refurbish and reinforce those structures, supply and install new equipment, upgrade the electrical and automation systems, and bring the plant back into operation once the work is finished.
The client, Empresas Municipales de Cali (EMCALI), is a public company providing water, telecommunications and electricity services in Cali, Colombia's third-largest city, with a population of approximately 2.6 million people. Its water and sewage business unit (UENAA) is in charge of the water supply and sewers in Cali and nearby municipalities. It has around 620,000 customers for water and 590,000 for sewerage.
Emblematic projects
ACCIONA Agua has been operating in Colombia since 2011, where it has undertaken several noteworthy projects. In 2012, ACCIONA began construction of the Bello wastewater treatment plant in Medellín, with an initial rated average throughput of 5 m3/s, serving the equivalent of close to 4 million people.
In 2013, the Guajira Departmental Government granted ACCIONA a contract to optimise the drinking water mains and to create a geotagged database of users in the municipality of Riohacha, the capital of Guajira, in Colombia's Caribbean area.
ACCIONA is a leading player in the Colombian hydroelectric industry, having built the El Guavio, Santa Rita and Río Grande II dams. In the area of transport infrastructure, ACCIONA built and commissioned the Medellín Metro, Colombia's first mass transit system, which was inaugurated in 1995 and is considered an emblematic work in the sector.