The Águas de Portugal group is to spend €18 million between now and the year 2020 to double its renewable energy production and shear €5 million a year off its electricity bill.
The State-owned company has announced an Energy Efficiency and Production Plan which outlines a renewable energy production target of 50 Gigawatt hours, more than double its current production.
"A significant part will be used in our facilities, most Wastewater Treatment Plants which are energy hungry, allowing us to reduce the energy bill of the group."
The group's annual electricity consumption is around 704 GWh making it one of the top five energy consumers in the country but more importantly, the group’s energy bill accounted for 57% of its operating costs in 2016, around €68 million.
In addition to the increase in its own production of energy from renewable sources, the plan foresees an overall reduction in energy consumption by maximising its use of hydro-electric power and of biogas produced by the sludgy stuff at treatment plants.
Currently, Águas de Portugal has more than 300 photovoltaic plants, equivalent to a production of 3.4GWh, "and it is expected that this can be boosted by about 15 GWh."
Then there’s the plan to use electric vehicles which can be recharged Águas de Portugal photovoltaic sites.
"In a first phase, the group aims to introduce about 100 electric vehicles and install around 50 recharging points," reads the report.
When it comes time to select contractors to supply and install all of this shiny new solar power equipment, the company’s management will be keenly aware that its fiscal probity will be under the spotlight like never before.
A Court of Auditors’ report released earlier this month and covering a period between 2012 and the first half of 2014, showed that "85% of the directly awarded contracts examined have irregularities and insufficiencies," with an accompanying “lack of legal formalities, the absence of records, the absence of legally required documentation and the absence of any legally required reasoning.”
It is hoped that the lack of management controls has been remedied and that the new wave of renewable energy installations at Águas de Portugal will be contracted at a fair price, with open competition and without any more under-the-counter payments.
See: 'Portugal's national water company awash with corruption'
