13 Express Interest in Puerto Rico Public Private Partnership
The Puerto Rico public-private partnership project of technology and water automated meter reading generated a strong interest from investors worldwide. The Puerto Rico Public-Private Partnerships Authority (PPPA), along with the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA), received 13 statements of qualifications from specialized consortia to participate in the project.
This interest came as a response to request for qualifications in June for the project that contemplates the design, development, financing, and operation of advanced technology for the water automated meter reading, the implementation of a geographic information registry of PRASA customers and the reduction of non-revenue water.
The consortia that filed their qualifications will be evaluated based on their technical and financial credentials.
The following consortia responded to the June require (listed in the order in which their responses were received):
- NCO Financial Systems of Puerto Rico (Puerto Rico/USA).
- TAHAL Group & Associates (Israel).
- Proactiva Medio Ambiente (Spain).
- Aguas Borinquen (consortium formed by Empresas de Acueductos y Alcantarillados de Bogotá – E.S.P. and Miya S.a.r.l.) (Colombia/Luxemburg).
- EYDAP S.A. (Greece)
- Suez Environment North America and Sociedad de Aguas de Barcelona (France/Spain/USA)
- Consorcio Canal Extensia and Inassa (Spain/Colombia)
- Empresas Públicas de Medellín E.S.P. – EPM (Colombia)
- Pure Water Consortium (Cobra/ACS Group) (Spain)
- Paragon Project Resources, Inc. (USA)
- Omega-Wendel, LLC. (Omega Engineering, LLC. and Wendel, LLC.) (United Emirates/USA)
- Johnson Controls, Inc. (USA)
- AAIC Consortium (ACEA S.p.A., IBM, Citi, and ARAD Technologies LTD.) (Italy/USA/Israel)
Jose Ortiz, PRASA executive director, pointed out that “PRASA continues to make progress to improve the services to clients and to strengthen its financial condition. This PPP project will allow us to establish modern, reliable, and efficient water automated reading system that will reduce the level of non-revenue water that has come about due to reasons such as losses, imprecise metering, water theft, and unauthorized water consumption, among others”. Ortiz indicated up that 63 percent of water produced by PRASA in 2009 was classified as non-revenue water, which in turn represented economic losses and an increase of maintenance and operational costs.
The partnership committee will evaluate consortia qualifications and then release the names of those qualified to submit formal proposals by next month.
The PPPA has established a website, www.p3.gov.pr, which contains all the information about this and other PPP projects in Puerto Rico.