Domingo Zarzo Martínez

Sacyr Water Director of Strategic Projects, Communications, and Institutional Relations 

Sacyr Agua

Directive (EU) 2024/3019 on urban wastewater treatment was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on December 12, 2024. It requires Member States to transpose the new rules into national legislation within 30 months, by July 2027. In Spain, the first steps are already underway through a draft law submitted for consultation in June 2026.

The Directive marks a major shift for wastewater treatment. It promotes water reuse, sets a 2045 decarbonization target for the sector, and expands the requirements of the previous 1991 directive, both in terms of the size of municipalities covered (>1,000 inhabitants) and the quality standards they must meet. It also introduces advanced treatment processes, known as quaternary treatment, to remove contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), including pharmaceutical residues, personal care products, drugs and other substances, with part of the cost to be covered by the producers of those products.

This is where the Directive introduces the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Under this approach, the pharmaceutical and personal care product industries will be required to finance at least 80% of the cost of implementing treatments designed to remove CECs, in line with the “polluter pays” principle.

Each EU Member State will have to design and implement its own EPR scheme for this purpose. In practice, this means there will not be a single Europe-wide model; each country will adapt the system to its own legal and administrative framework.

The funds collected will be earmarked to cover the capital and operating costs associated with installing and maintaining quaternary treatment systems at wastewater treatment plants. The Directive also encourages these fees to be “modulated,” meaning they may vary according to the hazard, persistence or volume of micropollutants contained in each product. This should encourage producers to design and market products with a lower environmental impact.

Several pharmaceutical companies have challenged the EPR regime, arguing that it unfairly penalizes the sector and lacks sufficient empirical rigor and proportionality. Over the coming months and years, we will see how these responsibilities are defined in practice and how Spain shapes and implements its own EPR framework. It is also likely that industry will pass part of these costs on to the final price of products, although the EU’s objective is for any impact to be proportionate and to encourage innovation toward more sustainable products.

A similar concept, although in a different area of water management, can be found in Spain’s new Royal Decree 1085/2024 on water reuse. For the first time, it opens the legal door for industries and private companies in Spain to finance water treatment or reuse infrastructure to offset their water footprint and move toward the concept of being Water Positive. It could also create new opportunities for public-private partnership models in water infrastructure, which, unlike in other countries, remain relatively uncommon in Spain.

Water Positive

Many of the world’s largest corporations—including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Coca-Cola and Tesla—have committed to becoming Water Positive by 2030. Technology companies, among the largest consumers of water because of their data centers, are already making significant investments in this area.

For example, Amazon Web Services has committed €17 million to the Government of Aragon to offset the water footprint of its new data centers under construction, while Microsoft is also financing irrigation improvements for farmers in Spain and projects to reduce losses in municipal drinking water networks.

Sacyr Group is already Water Positive. Since 2022, our water footprint has been measured and certified under ISO 14046. Thanks to our production of desalinated and reused water, we have a positive net water balance across the Group, in every country where we operate and across all our activities: we produce more water than we consume.

Together, these new regulations open up significant investment and business opportunities for Sacyr in Spain and across Europe. In Spain alone, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the sector’s main associations estimate that €24.5 billion in investment will be needed to comply with the new Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive.

Sacyr is well positioned to take on these challenges and investments. As early as 2015, Sacyr Agua built the advanced treatment system at the La Gavia wastewater treatment plant in Madrid, which we also operate today. With a capacity of 1 m³ per second, it is one of the largest facilities of its kind in Spain. We have also carried out numerous innovation projects, including pilot tests of different technologies to remove emerging contaminants and microplastics.

In the same way, Sacyr Agua has promoted the Water Positive approach from the outset and has defined a strategy to address this emerging market, identifying potential internal offset projects that can be offered to companies and industrial clients.

From optimizing road maintenance to the smart management of urban spaces, including energy efficiency in large-scale infrastructure and the improvement of bidding and procurement processes, Sacyr is driving solutions based on data, machine learning, predictive models, and generative artificial intelligence that enable the company to anticipate issues, make better decisions, and generate a positive and measurable impact on society.

Here are some of the most significant projects in which the company is applying artificial intelligence in a tangible way.

1.    APROMAC: Artificial Intelligence to Anticipate Pavement Deterioration

Sacyr Concesiones is developing APROMAC, an advanced predictive analytics module designed to transform pavement management and maintenance through machine learning and deep learning techniques. The project’s main objective is to anticipate changes in key indicators of pavement condition—such as ruts, macrotexture, and the transverse friction coefficient (TFC)—based on real-world operational and road inspection data.

APROMAC was developed in response to the limitations of traditional prediction models, which are based on empirical formulations that struggle to represent nonlinear behavior and the simultaneous interaction of multiple factors. To address this, the project systematically investigates the construction, climatic, and traffic variables that influence pavement deterioration, applying big data and artificial intelligence technologies to real historical data from roads managed by Sacyr.

Following a rigorous data cleaning and standardization phase, new predictive models have been trained and validated that are capable of significantly improving accuracy compared to current approaches. The result is a tool that enables long-term prediction of pavement behavior and supports more efficient maintenance planning.

The project also relies on a digital platform designed for infrastructure managers, which facilitates the visualization of projected trends by homogeneous sections and the analysis of different maintenance scenarios, promoting proactive, data-driven decision-making. APROMAC is co-funded by the European Union, the Ministry of Finance, and the CDTI, through the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities.

2.    SUSTAIN: Digital Twins for Smarter, More Human-Centered Urban Management. The Example of “Las Setas de Sevilla”

The SUSTAIN project explores the potential of digital twins and artificial intelligence in the smart management of unique urban spaces. Within this framework, Sacyr has developed an advanced digital twin of Las Setas de Sevilla, an iconic landmark that combines a public square, a market, a viewpoint, and access to an archaeological site.

The solution combines real-time data from IoT sensors, computer vision systems, and mobility data to create a dynamic digital representation of the site and how users interact with the space. Thanks to this information, the digital twin provides insights into usage patterns, environmental conditions, and visitor volumes, as well as the ability to simulate different event scenarios and configurations of the public space.

Using predictive models based on artificial intelligence, SUSTAIN is able to anticipate peaks in demand, visitor behavior, and operational needs, tangibly improving the efficiency of management, planning, and the citizen experience. The project also incorporates indicators related to the condition and maintenance of the infrastructure and is designed as a tool for designing and evaluating urban improvement strategies with a comprehensive approach.

Universal accessibility, inclusion, quality of life, and integration into the urban fabric are cross-cutting themes of the project, aligned with Sacyr’s vision of developing infrastructure with a positive social impact. The initiative, funded by the CDTI with Next Generation funds from the European Union, lays the groundwork for scaling these solutions to other concession assets such as transit hubs, airports, hospitals, and large public spaces.

3.    Artificial Intelligence to Optimize Energy Efficiency at Madrid’s Transit Interchanges

Sacyr Concesiones has implemented an advanced energy optimization solution based on artificial intelligence at the Moncloa and Plaza Elíptica transit interchanges, high-traffic infrastructure facilities that together serve more than 260,000 users daily.

Both transit hubs feature complex HVAC and ventilation systems, managed through building management systems (BMS), and are subject to a highly demanding concession framework, with requirements for thermal comfort and environmental quality throughout their operation. To optimize their operation, Sacyr has integrated the Respira solution, developed by Sener, which acts as an autonomous virtual operator supported by advanced analytics and AI.

The system continuously analyzes variables such as indoor and outdoor temperatures, the building’s thermal inertia, occupancy, weather conditions, and historical equipment performance. Unlike traditional models based on rules and reactive responses, the solution introduces predictive control capable of anticipating temperature changes in the spaces and activating the HVAC systems more efficiently.

Thanks to this approach, it is possible to take advantage of favorable environmental conditions, optimize the use of thermal inertia, or adapt climate control to anticipated changes in occupancy, thereby reducing energy consumption without compromising user comfort. The result is a more sustainable and efficient operation that is aligned with infrastructure decarbonization goals.

4.    AI Agents to Transform Bidding and Procurement Processes

Beyond physical assets, Sacyr is applying artificial intelligence to its corporate processes, with a special focus on bidding and procurement—highly complex and document-intensive areas. The company is working on the development of a suite of AI agents that comprehensively cover the entire process cycle.

In the area of bidding, the approach is based on an ecosystem of specialized agents capable of automatically analyzing bid documents, detecting changes and addenda, structuring requirements, supporting strategic go/no-go decisions, generating technical documentation, and strengthening quality controls prior to the submission of bids. The goal is to move toward more standardized, traceable, and robust decision-making processes.

In the area of purchasing and procurement, AI agents enable the standardization of tender documents and requests for proposals, the analysis of suppliers, the objective comparison of proposals, the detection of contractual deviations, and support for negotiations. The process is rounded out by the generation of clear executive summaries that can be defended in the face of audits and before management.

These solutions are designed to act as co-pilots that enhance the work of teams by eliminating repetitive tasks and reducing ambiguity, allowing professionals to focus on strategic analysis and value creation.

This is an example of how we promote circular economy solutions, while also generating social benefits in the regions where we operate.

With a circular approach, Sacyr Agua has been promoting the reuse of desalination membranes for years, transforming the end of their useful life into a new opportunity. This practice extends the useful life of a key technical material in desalination plants, preventing its premature disposal as waste and promoting a more efficient use of resources.

 

Dozens of membranes from desalination plants await a second life thanks to reuse and recycling technologies.

New Applications for a Valuable Resource

Membranes that have reached the end of their useful life in the seawater desalination process can have a second life. At Sacyr, we reuse them for new applications that enhance their value:

•    Treatment of reclaimed water for agricultural use, where quality requirements are less stringent. This initiative is already underway at EDAM Skikda O&M and the Honaine Desalination Plant (Algeria), Sohar Operation Services (Oman), and Southern Seawater (Australia).
•    Reuse at other company facilities, where the membranes are utilized as filters for various water treatment processes. For example, membranes from IDAM Torrevieja UTE have been transferred to IDAM Alicante to continue serving in new applications.
•    Wastewater treatment, where they are used as part of tertiary treatment processes or MBR (Membrane Bioreactor) systems.
•    Creation of recreational spaces and landscaping features at the desalination plants themselves, transforming them into planters, as has already been done at Sohar Operation Services (Oman).

Through this initiative, at Sacyr Agua we give the membranes a second life, reducing waste and preventing their disposal in landfills. This action is part of our Zero Waste Plan and contributes to advancing the company’s circular economy objectives. It aligns with our strategies focused on preventing the generation of non-hazardous waste and fostering partnerships that avoid its disposal, while promoting sustainable solutions across all our operations.
 

Technical staff perform monitoring and commissioning tasks on a membrane filtration system.

More Than 10,000 Reused Membranes

Between 2023 and 2025, more than 10,000 desalination membranes have been reused.

This initiative is already being implemented in various Sacyr Agua projects, both in Spain and in other countries, promoting a more circular approach to materials management by extending their useful life and encouraging new uses before disposal. Additionally, it has a positive impact on the communities where we operate by supporting solutions related to water treatment for agricultural and productive activities.

P&IDs are piping and instrumentation diagrams that schematically represent all the equipment, pipes, associated components, instrumentation and controls in an industrial plant. These are highly complex drawings due to the vast amount of information they contain.

To make them easier to read and work with, Sacyr Proyecta, together with the ICT team, has created the P&IDs AI Project. The aim is to significantly improve the productivity of the engineering teams by extracting the lists associated with these documents – a task that used to take our specialists a great deal of time due to the high complexity of the drawings.

“This tool represents a significant step forward in the digitalisation of engineering processes. It enables us to transform static drawings into sources of structured data that are reusable and can be linked to other corporate systems,” emphasises Raúl López Perdiguero, director of Sacyr Proyecta.

Combination of advanced techniques

The technological solution combines advanced computer vision, optical character recognition (OCR) and machine learning techniques to process P&IDs in digital format and generate a structured file containing the detected elements.

This file is then refined using post-processing algorithms that eliminate false detections and improve recognition accuracy.

The tool features an interactive graphical interface that allows the user to review, edit and validate the results generated by the AI before exporting them to the final lists. 

“To deliver real value in engineering, it is not enough simply to recognise symbols and carry out a basic count. It is essential to link each symbol to the line on which it appears in order to obtain key information, such as its size, material, etc.,” explains Ana Silva Balaguera, a mechanical engineer at Sacyr Proyecta.

Transforming traditional processes

“The smart P&ID digitisation project is a strong example of how technological innovation can transform traditional processes and have a direct impact on productivity,” says López Perdiguero.

The project’s architecture has been designed from the outset with scalability in mind, with the aim of extending the solution to other Sacyr business units, such as Water, Engineering and Infrastructure.