The company behind Sydney's $2.1bn light rail

Acciona is a relative newcomer to the Australian construction scene, opening an office here in 2002. But it is a major force in Europe and traces its roots back to 1862 when it built its first project in Spain.

The company employees 32,000 professionals in 60 countries and has 1,000-odd in its Sydney office.

Acciona has been repositioning itself in recent years as a leader in sustainable development, which its website says involves “strong support for social progress, environmental balance and economic growth.”

As well as infrastructure and construction, it has a major business in renewable energy and more recently has moved into water utilities, such as desalination plants and pipelines.

In Australia the light rail project is Acciona’s biggest, valued at $2.1bn. It has just completed the Legacy Way tunnels in Brisbane and is involved in the Toowoomba Second Range Crossing in Queensland, the Pacific Highway upgrade between Warrell Creek and Nambucca Heads, and the 1.5km long bridge over the Clarence River at Harwood.

It has several teams working on bids in QLD, NSW, VIC and WA.

Acciona Agua was part of the consortium that built and now operates the Adelaide desalination plant and the Mundaring water treatment plant near Perth. It is building water treatment plants on the Sunshine Coast and Tasmania.

Acciona is also big in wind power. Current projects include a $258m 429GW hour a year wind turbine plant at Mount Gellibrand in Victoria, scheduled for commissioning in April. It has also built windfarms at Cathedral Rocks near Port Lincoln in South Australia; Gunning near Canberra and another near Ballarat.

Transport projects include subsidiary Coleman Rail’s $551.7m contract to upgrade Victoria’s Ballarat rail line and another $558m contract to remove level crossings on the Frankston rail line.

Internationally it can boast some high profile projects including the Ting Kau Bridge in Hong Kong completed in 1998, the Gare do Oriente in Lisbon completed in 1998 and the federal chancellery in Berlin, completed in 2001.

In 2017 the company reported an ordinary net profit of €233m, up 59.8% on the previous year.