The contract has been given by the Loja municipality with funding made by the Andean Development Corporation (CAF).
The new plant will serve a population of up to 350,000 and will have a maximum throughput of 1.45m3/s. It will be built on a 10.5 hectare area, located on the east bank of the Zamora River, on the outskirts of Loja.
According to Acciona, the wastewater treatment plant will be constructed in two stages. In the first stage, the infrastructure needed to serve the present population of the city and to control the river pollution problem will be built.
In the second stage, which will be undertaken in the future, the sludge collected from waste water treatment will be used to generate energy to fuel the plant.
Last year, Acciona Agua won a contract from the Guayaquil municipal water and sewage company in Ecuador to construct a pumping station. Named as the La Pradera pumping station, the facility will be a part of the infrastructure for a wastewater treatment plant to be built in the future in Las Esclusas.
The La Pradera pumping station will replace the existing pumping station in the area and is expected to help in upgrading the sewer network.
Towards the end of 2017, Acciona Agua completed the construction of the Ibarra wastewater treatment plant in northern Ecuador. The Ibarra plant serves a population of nearly 200,000 and has a capacity of 43,200m3 per day.
Acciona Agua is one of the business divisions of Spanish conglomerate Acciona. It provides design, construction and operation of drinking water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants, desalination facilities and also tertiary treatment plants for reusing water.
Last month, the company completed construction of a desalination plant in Sardinia, Italy, which will supply demineralised water to the Sarlux refinery.
Image: The Loja wastewater treatment plant will be built on the east bank of the Zamora River. Photo: courtesy of Acciona.
