Innovation
Add competitiveness to business lines based on technological differentiation.
ACCIONA is fully aware of this being so, innovation therefore having become the Company's driving force.
The innovation budget has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. In 2010 investment went up 22% to 88.1M€. This budget effort has meant substantial growth in:
The number of professionals working exclusively in R&D has grown from 30 people in 2006 to 346 in 2010. The number of research projects has increased from 67 in 2007 to the 133 completed in 2010.
Only so has ACCIONA positioned itself in the lead of developing solutions and alternatives combining maximum innovation with maximum care of the ecological environment. Its intense activity along with the excellence of its performance have been recognized at the highest level, its R&D Management System thus having achieved Une 166002:2006. certification. Additionally, the industrial property management model put into practice in 2007 is continuing to bear its fruits, ACCIONA currently holding 67 patents.
Its dynamism in this field has also been reflected in its wide-ranging presence in the innovation program led by Spain's Government, the CENIT (National Strategic Consortia in Technical Research), where it is taking part in thirteen projects. ACCIONA is also especially active within the European framework, where it is positioned as the fourth-ranked Spanish company in submittal of proposals to the European Union Seventh Framework Program.
ACCIONA focuses its innovation-related activities on three technological centers that make up the pillars of the competitiveness of its business model.
- Madrid: specialized in construction and sustainable transport.
- Pamplona: focusing on developments of the renewable energies service.
- Barcelona: specialized in water technologies.
In these activities, ACCIONA's professionals are working on the most innovative technologies, ranging from nanotechnology and the reuse of material for the construction industry, to information and communications technologies - better known as ICT‐ plus all those technologies related to producing alternative energies: wind, solar, photovoltaic, thermoelectric, hydrogen, desalination and wastewater reuse.