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Energy Efficiency

Water infrastructure isn’t aging, it is old. Much of it represents a time when energy costs were low and water systems were independent of energy systems. The Energy Efficiency Focus Group was formed to identify practices and technologies to improve energy efficiency and lower energy use in process treatment and utility operations.  This group is collaboratively investigating several energy conservation technologies to help utilities achieve net-neutrality or energy-positive operations.

Chair: Ya-Chi Tsao, Staff Engineer - Planning & Research, Philadelphia Water

Vice-Chair: Vacant

7 Projects
Energy Optimization
Energy Recovery

Resources & Events

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News

Energy Production & Efficiency

06/01/2020

Energy is usually the second-highest cost item of a water utility’s operating budget. Many opportunities exist for the design and operational optimization of electricity use for water supply and treatment...

Village Creek Water Reclamation Facility

Featured Facility
Ana Pena-Tijerina
06/14/2019

Village Creek Water Reclamation Facility (VCWRF) has implemented numerous energy-related improvements by executing an Energy Savings Performance Contract with Johnson Controls, Inc.

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Related Research Projects

Project #1560

Decision Support System for Sustainable Energy Management

Completed

The Water RF and WERF collaborated in this project to provide better decisions on reducing non-renewable energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the water and wastewater...

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Project #1544

Sustainable Energy Optimization Tool - Carbon Heat Energy Assessment Plant Evaluation Tool (CHEApet)

Completed

A web-based plant-wide energy model that considers all forms of energy (calorific, electric, thermal, and recovered biogas from cogeneration) as well as Greenhouse Gas emission predictions is part...

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Project #1417

Energy Performance Benchmarking Summaries and Recommendations for Energy Neutrality Opportunities at Three New York Water Resource Recovery Facilities

Completed

WERF is working collaboratively with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to advance implementation of energy-efficient best practices in the industry. This research contributes to...

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Project #5091

Developing a Framework for Quantifying Energy Optimization Reporting

In Progress

Energy projects within the water sector are often discretionary and are initiated based on projected annual energy savings metrics. The water sector lacks standard energy savings estimation procedures...

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Project #4843

Integrating Sewage Thermal Energy Use (STEU) and Other Emerging Water-Energy-Waste Technologies into Decentralized/Distributed Systems

In Progress

The primary objective of this research is to organize and analyze information on sewage thermal energy use (STEU) and other emerging water-energy-waste technologies, including techno-economic analysis of these...

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Project #4863

Hybrid Anaerobic Primary and Secondary Treatment with Energy Recovery

In Progress

The goal of this project is to demonstrate the efficacy of a low complexity mainstream anaerobic wastewater treatment system for energy generation and increase process understanding. The researchers...

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Related Research Topics

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Energy Optimization

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Energy Recovery

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Water Use & Efficiency

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Asset Management

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