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Utilities discover saving water saves energy

Water provides Western customers with 10,600 MW of clean energy, but it also consumes huge amounts electricity for treatment, transportation and heating and cooling.

Hydropower marketers generally tend to think about conserving water in terms of protecting the generating resource. Lately, however, the energy and water industries have been looking more closely at the complex interconnection between two resources.

Water use consumes 8 percent of the country’s energy for treatment, transportation and heating. The energy needed for these functions is the “embodied energy” in water use and is measured in kWh/gallon.

Likewise, powerplants require “embodied water,” expressed in gallon/kWh, to cool systems. Add the fact that these functions occur mostly during peak use hours, and it becomes clear that water conservation also carries embodied energy-saving opportunities.

“Water and energy conservation are often stove-piped as separate programs, but planners are starting to see the value of a systems approach,” said engineer Judy Dorsey. Dorsey is president and principal engineer of the Brendle Group, a Fort Collins, Colo., engineering consulting firm that specializes in energy efficiency, pollution prevention, water conservation and sustainable design.

City cuts water use to reduce greenhouse gasses
The Brendle Group is working with Fort Collins Natural Resources Department on a project that will quantify greenhouse gas emission reduction through water conservation. The project is part of the city’s Climate Wise business outreach program. The program works with business partners to reduce greenhouse gasses by promoting waste reduction, energy savings, alternative transportation, water conservation and pollution prevention. Business partners receive free technical assessments that include energy, waste, water and transportation; public recognition for their involvement; and networking opportunities with peer companies throughout the year.

“The Climate Wise goal is to reduce the city’s annual CO₂ emissions by 90 thousand tons by 2010,” said Kathy Collier, the city’s environmental planner. “Adding water conservation should help us reach the target faster.”

The project will draw from case studies the Brendle Group did on the Climate Wise member Anheuser Busch brewery in Fort Collins, and on the University of Colorado in Boulder. In 2003, Anheuser Busch reduced water use per barrel by nearly 12 percent over the previous year. By making changes in the manufacturing process, the brewery was able to save 93 million gallons of water annually.

Siemens Building Technologies tapped the Brendle Group’s water/energy expertise to support a performance contract Siemens had with CU’s housing department. The Brendle Group conducted domestic, irrigation and process water audits of several campus buildings.

Conservation measures based on the audit results saved the university more than 76,000 kgal per year for a cost savings of $382,275 and a 4.3-year payback. “It was a perfect example of how water savings can pay for energy projects,” said Dorsey.

Such results show the value of conservation investments to taxpayers, Collier added. “That’s one of the reasons we quantify everything we do,” she said.

Utilities teach consumers to save water
Dorsey agreed that it is important to communicate the water/energy connection to residential end-users. Those customers are not as likely as utilities and large industrial customers to see significant direct savings from integrated conservation plans, she admitted. “Still, people don’t pay for water they don’t use, so there is some immediate savings potential,” Dorsey said. “Water’s embedded energy costs get passed on to consumers in their water bills,” she added.

Many Western customers share Dorsey’s belief and have programs to promote water conservation by residential and business consumers.

Fort Collins successfully reduced water use with an outreach program in 2002, the driest year recorded in Colorado. Water Conservation Specialist Laurie D'Audney recalled that Fort Collins Utilities used extensive advertising, press releases and articles to reach both residential and commercial accounts.

“We held meetings with hotels, restaurants, health clubs and other large accounts, and really beefed up our residential education campaign,” she said.

During 2003 and 2004, residential customers received coupons in their utility bills for conservation kits that included showerheads, faucet aerators, shut-off hose nozzles and sprinkler timers.

Riverside, Calif., Public Utilities and Roseville, Calif., Electric are among the many municipal utilities that take a similar approach to wise water use with a mix of online educational resources, incentives and services.

Campaigns can be customized
Many utilities offer landscaping programs and gardening tips tailored to dry climates, which abound in Western’s territory. Sprinkler system audits, customer rebates for appliances like high-efficiency clothes washers and ultra-low-flush toilets encourage end-users to use less.

Riverside businesses can receive rebates for toilets, high-efficiency, self-closing pre-rinse spray valves, and much more through the Be Waterwise partnership of Southern California water agencies.

Programs like Be Waterwise and Water Use It Wisely create marketing and education materials and partnership promotions that utilities can adapt for their own programs. Western customers Salt River Project and the city of Mesa, Ariz. are Water Use It Wisely sponsors.

Experts urge broader planning
Consumer education alone will not realize the savings potential of integrated water/energy conservation. At a seminar the California Energy Commission recently held, consultants advised close coordination of the state’s energy and water planning.

Suggested measures such as offering incentives for water agencies to build more storage and testing time-of-use water meters are beyond the scope of small utilities. “With more than 2,000 water districts in Colorado, state-wide conservation planning requires coordination of sometimes limited resources,” Dorsey said.

However, as more data emerges quantifying the cost and energy savings of water conservation, opportunities for water and power providers to pool their planning resources may also arise. In the meantime, utilities can only benefit from recognizing the water/energy connection and encouraging consumers to use both wisely.