March-April 2011

Cost Control

Water and wastewater utilities are reducing energy use and decreasing their bottom line with the help of energy management systems.

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Everything grows old: Grandpa, that pretty first grade teacher you had in elementary school, vehicles, television wonders, quarterbacks and pitchers . . . and all the infrastructure which supports our needs at home and work. Most people don’t notice infrastructure growing old as much as the other aspects of normal life; therein lies its danger. What does energy have to do with the infrastructure? Isn’t infrastructure made of concrete, pipe, steel, metal bits and pieces, asphalt, and other hard things that last forever?

“Energy represents the largest controlling cost of providing water or wastewater services to the public,” advises the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “Most facilities were designed and built when energy costs were not a major concern. With large pumps, drives, motors, and other equipment operating 24 hours a day, water and wastewater utilities can be among the largest individual users in a community.”

Many members of that community profess ignorance about the real and dangerous state of infrastructure required for our water supply; some cannot imagine why they should expect to pay more as infrastructure is repaired. Perhaps the biggest worry is that too many neighbors don’t realize how critical the water supply has become across the country. Bottled water (which some people consider a product unrelated to real water!) at its exorbitant cost is not the answer. How many bottles are used to do a load of laundry or take a shower? There are about 60,000 community drinking water systems in the US. Most of them use pumping to achieve their distribution goals, so a water utility’s energy use may be affected by the water source, quality, elevation, distance, storage, age, and processing.

Some energy wasted today is used in the operation of neglected, senile distribution systems we have. It’s not only the age of those systems that takes more energy, but the fact that many old water systems have leaks and faults that cause failures in providing the required water in a timely fashion. (Don’t forget that most water leaks occur after all the money is spent on making it drinkable.) These are problems that should have been detected and corrected. It takes energy to make up for the deficit caused by broken pipes, inefficient pumps, and other problems that are everyday in many communities. As the infrastructure gets older and deteriorates (which is normal and should not be surprising . . . think of Grandpa), the demands for energy increase. How can we improve that situation? How can we manage the energy?

Our first step is to see what we have. Once we know that, and know what we will need to have, we can start planning an energy management system that will not only save us money, but also give us a more efficient water distribution system. Some time ago, I read a thoughtful and sensible quote from a gentleman at a water treatment plant: “A plan-do-check-act process is good for business and good for the environment,” notes Bob Bois, at Springvale Water Treatment Plant in Natick, MA. “We can’t do much about the weather and the outside factors that drive bulk energy costs, but we can commit to competitive volume purchases of energy and to employing energy conservation efforts to effectively hold down the ever-increasing costs and impacts of fossil-based energy usage. This process can help identify energy conservation opportunities.”

That “plan-do-check-act” concept has been praised and supported by EPA in a helpful, free booklet, Energy Management Guidebook for Wastewater and Water Utilities. At more than 100 pages, don’t let that put you off reading—it’s crammed with good sense and helpful ideas.

The guidebook starts its assault on the problems posed by today’s high-energy costs, saying, “You may be eager to plunge directly into starting energy programs, but, before you do, it is important that you prepare your utility for the effort.”

Starting the Campaign to Manage Energy
You may know some utility managers and workers who think theory is a waste of time, and all they ask for is “Action now!” or temporary solutions for what they see as only temporary problems. This challenge to get the best use of the energy you use is not a temporary problem. If it is not addressed now, it will be worse in 12 months—much worse in two years, five years, or a decade. After establishing what your goals are for improving your energy use, you should secure and maintain management commitment, involvement, and visibility. The public (your customers, whether you are a private or public water utility) will want to see evidence that the managers are in favor of—and planning to be involved in—all the steps to wise energy management. The affordability of any program to improve energy efficiency at the water utility often seems the most obvious problem. An excellent reason for getting management commitment from the first step forward is that some costs which seem prohibitive at first may turn out to be quite acceptable to people who can see what the long-term benefits will be for the community.

Start with a well-defined goal, even if it is only a part of your operation. It could be the pumps. Your first commitment or goal could be to ensure that your pumps are doing the job they were bought to do, and doing it in the most efficient way. It does not necessarily mean you must buy new pumps this afternoon. It’s possible that is the best final solution, but, meanwhile, determine that what you have are used in their most efficient manner. That could mean making a control system that uses less energy, but maintains adequate production.

The same people who are against well-defined, prepared plans are usually confident that experts such as themselves can “wing it” to solve problems as they arise. One of my neighbors is such a philosopher, and he used it when he climbed on a new dozer without bothering about the operation manual. He knows how to run any machine, doesn’t he? It didn’t seem so when he couldn’t cope with the modern, sensitive controls of the dozer and was lucky that he was thrown away from the tipping machine on its first run. With this winging it philosophy, the only items that tend to fly are the money spent (flying out the window) and future security (evaporating into thin air).

This progress in energy control for a water utility or water district is not new. It has been almost a decade since the Tualatin Valley Water District decided to make its operations sustainable, and it has been doing very well in those efforts. Included in all sustainability plans is the premise that the energy required to run the utility will be managed in such a way to be affordable for a sustained period. At the Tualatin Valley Water District in Oregon, the Sustainability Program provides leadership, education, project management, analysis, and accountability.

Photo: American Water Much success will come from increasing pump efficiency, while a good reduction will come from increasing renewable energy sources.

Photo: American Water

“Our program accomplishes this by leading District efforts to adopt sustainable business operations,” advises Cheryl Welch, Strategic Planner for the water district. “We search for cost-saving, environmentally safer solutions and technologies. We work with our staff, too, to create a healthy and vibrant organization and act as a partner with other regional stakeholders to ensure a thriving environment, economy, and community.” A good energy management system may involve new products, but it must always involve the people of the utility. Forget compartments like energy, water, tools, vehicles, and treatment. The management system includes all those.

There is no room for inter- or intra-departmental bickering and role grabbing. That’s why successful water utilities and districts (like Tualatin Valley) have a team to plan and produce results. The entire water utility workforce will be the extension of the team that addresses particular energy issues. Although it’s a practical idea to start energy management in a specific area (such as the pumps), every aspect of the utility will be part of that energy management attitude and program. In Tualatin Valley Water District, soon after they started their progress, the use of energy stayed steady for two years, even though the customer base had grown and the district had expansion at its headquarters facility.

“This was due, in large part, to our energy conservation efforts,” observes Welch. “Our LEED-certified headquarters building incorporated many energy-efficient technologies in the areas of lighting and HVAC, decreasing by 26% our kilowatt-hour usage per square-foot. Our pump stations, which bring water to our customers at higher elevations, continue to be retrofitted with variable frequency drives that are more efficient and use less electricity than conventional drives. We still use a lot of electricity [about 4 million kWh annually], so we purchase Green Tags to offset, partially, the negative effects of electric production. The District began by offsetting 25% of total usage, and we’ve increased that percentage steadily.”

It’s amazing how few of the many millions of electric motors nationwide and worldwide are controlled by variable speed drives. Traditionally, motors have been controlled by a valve that regulates the flow of fuel or a vane that controls the airflow, while the speed of the motor itself remains unchanged. These and other methods (such as two-speed motors or controlling them by switching on or off) are inefficient from the aspect of energy use. A main reason why variable speed drives save energy is that they can change the speed of an electrical motor by controlling the power that is put into the machine.

ABB, one of the world’s leading producers of variable speed drives, estimates that, worldwide, these drives save users well over 1 million MWh of electricity each year. From the most practical point of view, the investment in variable speed drives for motors can be recovered in a matter of months, with pump applications often showing the expenditure recouped in less than a year. After that, of course, the energy (and money) savings keep on going! Variable speed drives are made in sizes for just about any application, with some about the size of a milk carton, and others as big as a closet.

WEG and Baldor are other leading providers of variable frequency drives, and your local source for electrical products may be able to give you the best and latest information on all competitive models and techniques.

Success Will Be a Continuous Program
Variable speed drives are an obvious resource for managing energy in one particular area of the utility’s operations. The continued savings in energy do not stop after one purchase, or one installation, or one retrofit. The savings must be permanent, and permanently, monitored. A phrase that addresses this is “continuous monitoring”.

A company that believes in such efficiency is EPS. “One quick project can work a little,” asserts Staffan Akerstrom, a founder of the company, after years of experience in the energy field. “But you can quickly get back to where you started unless you maintain continuous monitoring. Energy management is a long-term plan, not a quick fix. The EPS Way delivers critical information, tools, and expertise to achieve measurable energy savings and carbon reduction levels on a continuous basis.”

Here’s how this energy use approach works. The EPS Way has three steps: Control, Replace, and Shift. “In the first step [Control], we start by measuring and controlling your current energy consumption,” explains Akerstrom. “Next, our team of energy experts analyzes the data and makes actionable recommendations to control energy usage for greater efficiency [and reduced carbon emissions]. After identifying the most compelling opportunities, offering the greatest and fastest ROI [return on investment] across your enterprise, we can help implement them and track the results to ensure you achieve the targeted returns.”

The second step (Replace) in this approach focuses on repairing or replacing inefficient equipment at your plant. “We quantify the expected return,” continues Akerstrom, “and can manage the entire project to repair, upgrade, or replace these inefficient assets.

The third step recommended by EPS (Shift) is to move some or all of your energy to clean, renewable sources, if it makes sense to do so.

A Utility of Any Size Can Succeed at Energy Management
Solutions like those offered by EPS look expensive, and they can be so. As Akerstrom pointed out to me, however, the system is scalable. In other words, it may be adjusted in its scope to suit the needs of a specific customer. That scalability applies to most of the good ideas offered about energy management. Your small utility cannot match the spending of a giant utility or group, but you can select good ideas from what the bigger entity does and use those “smaller” solutions to improve your own situation. Here’s a good example of that.

American Water serves 16 million people in 35 states and two Canadian provinces. This company treats, pumps, and delivers 1 billion gallons of water a day. In its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save energy, American Water understands that much success will come from increasing pump efficiency, while a good reduction will also come from increasing the use of renewable energy sources. At some locations, solar energy will help accomplish the goals. At others, wind power will help. Pennsylvania American Water committed to operate its Yardley Water Treatment Plant (more than 12,000 customers, 6 million gallons a day) by enrolling in a wind power program. Through this program, the company purchases 1,603,200 kWh of green power annually to power the entire facility. That’s the environmental equivalent of planting more than 119,000 trees or not driving 1.5 million miles each year.

Photo: Radiodetection Broken pipes and leaks are common causes of wasted energy.

Photo: John Francis Traditionally, motors have been controlled by a valve that regulates the flow of fuel or a vane that controls the airflow, while the speed stays the same.

The four keys, which American Water recommends, make good sense, and they are scalable. Even the smallest water utility can understand and implement them. They:

• design for efficiency via enhanced pump, lighting, and process design standards
• construct for efficiency using sustainable construction methods and standards
• operate for efficiency utilizing enhanced Best Operating Practices, leak detection, and repair procedures
• maintain for efficiency via Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) and Preventive Maintenance Systems

“Every step in the water supply process uses energy,” stipulates Maureen Duffy, in a white paper on the correlation between energy and water, prepared for American Water. “Electricity plays a critical role in producing, treating, and delivering the clean water we use in our homes every day. About 4% of the electricity consumed in the US is used for collecting, treating, and moving water and wastewater. The biggest use of electricity in most cities is supplying water and cleaning it after it’s been used. Households use considerable amounts of energy to heat water for bathing, cooking, cleaning, and other uses. On the flip side, it takes water to create energy. Vast amounts of cooling water are used in power plants that generate electricity.”

It’s a community problem, therefore, and one of the ways to save energy is to educate everybody to use water more efficiently, for everyone’s sake. Start on one aspect of your system, like the pumps, but bring everything and everybody into the program.

Savings Today and Tomorrow
Two municipal water authorities in Pennsylvania (North Wales and North Penn) own Forest Park Water. There is a modern water treatment plant, a pumping station, and other facilities to serve more than 100,000 people with the provision of more than 22 million gallons per day of clean, safe water. Three years ago, Forest Park Water chose DemandSMART from EnerNOC as its comprehensive demand response (DR) application. By participating in DR with EnerNOC, Forest Park Water earns annual payments of $200,000 for temporarily activating backup generation and shutting off its pumping station during DR events. This was so successful that the water utility has now started to use EnerNOC’s SupplySMART energy price and risk management application and service. Rate caps in Pennsylvania were scheduled to expire in 2011, and Forest Park Water wanted protection against the volatility of future energy prices that could result from that decision. With help from EnerNOC (and its technologies, expertise, and analysis), the utility now has a long-term contract with a retail energy provider to take advantage of low market pricing. This customized energy strategy saves the water utility $200,000–$300,000 each year and gives the community budget certainty by locking in advantageous fixed pricing for three years.

“Some water utilities avoid change,” comments Jeff Pifer, manager of Forest Park Water. “We embrace changes as a means to remain on the leading edge of our industry, and to hold our own among other world-class treatment facilities. We’re interested in anything we can do to cut costs and keep water rates from changing. We’re willing to do things differently, if we think it can be advantageous to our organization, and to our ratepayers.”

Few of us are experts in energy and its complex procedures. EnerNOC certainly helped to take the mystery out of the electric industry for Forest Park Water’s Board of Directors and others, so the utility could make more intelligent, more informed decisions. The cost? “There are no costs to the end user,” advises Sarah McAuley, senior corporate communications manager at EnerNOC. “The utility/grid operator pays EnerNOC, and we pass along a percentage of those payments to the water utilities in our network. All our customers get real-time monitoring and access to profiling, which enables them to identify energy efficiency opportunities. That, too, has zero investment costs, as all metering is installed free by EnerNOC.”

The advance to better efficiency, less power, and more cost reduction today and tomorrow will not happen overnight. It can start to happen this year, if you decide to do it. The most common (and understandable) objection will be the cost. Have you investigated the cost, or are you just assuming that you won’t be able to afford it?

Author's Bio: Contributing writer Paul Hull focuses on topics related to technology, finance, and safety in the excavation and construction industry.