The Water Research Foundation (WRF) grants $100,000 to environmental engineering and construction firm Brown and Caldwell for the project, Developing a Framework for Quantifying Energy Optimization Reporting (5091). The framework will reportedly help water and wastewater utilities make informed capital expenditure decisions and increase confidence in future energy efficiency and emission reduction projects.
Partly funded by WRF via its Research Priority Program, the 24-month research project will develop a framework and methodology to scrutinize current pre-project energy savings estimation procedures and decision-making practices. Led by Brown and Caldwell, the project team includes 25 water and electrical utilities with established M&V knowledge to ensure reporting is data-driven, efficient and grounded in utility experience. The team will analyze around 35-40 completed energy projects to compare actual economic performance to the values forecast before project commencement. Several academia and industry associations are also on the project team.
“We use energy management to not only contain expenses in our wastewater operations, it’s one of our strategies for sustainability. We aim to minimize our environmental impact and plan for affordable treatment services in the long term for the Twin Cities region,” says David Ponder, environmental analyst, Metropolitan Council Environmental Services. “We’re sharing some of our energy projects as case studies in this research effort. Having industry standards for energy savings estimates will help us build the business case for energy efficiency investments and make it easier to position our projects with our electric utility partners to obtain incentives.”
Upon completion, the project results may increase confidence in the economic feasibility and energy reduction impact analyses used by water and wastewater utilities to determine energy project viability. The research will lay a foundation for future economic feasibility evaluations and post-construction measurement and verification of energy performance, according to Brown and Caldwell.
Project deliverables include a report detailing the framework for new/planned projects and a standardized reporting template to assess projects against key performance indicators. The report will consist of analyses of the completed projects with before-and-after data comparisons and a results summary of the energy efficiency upgrades. A webcast will describe the project's findings. The study is scheduled for completion by spring 2023.
For more information, visit www.brownandcaldwell.com
