District Energy - 2011 3rd Quarter

pressure on industry, is California’s
Water Conservation Act of 2009 (Senate
Bill SBx7-7). It requires a statewide
20 percent reduction in per capita urban
water consumption by 2020. Water sup-
pliers that fail to meet their water use
targets will be considered in violation of
the law and face administrative or judi-
cial proceedings after Jan. 1, 2021. The
expectation is that there will be signifi-
cant financial repercussions for those
water purveyors failing to meet these
new state and/or federal requirements.
In the end, district energy providers and
other water users in those areas will feel
the pain because the fees will get passed
on to the end users and ultimately raise
the cost of water.
Finally, you must look at your mar-
keting or brand positioning within your
local area. How will your water footprint
or conservation efforts impact your
brand? Will the steps you take to reduce
water use help or harm your position
within the community, among your peers
or with local government? The answers
to these questions can affect contract
negotiations and perceptions of your
system as well as limit your ability to
maintain credibility with local govern-
ment. Opinions matter, and good faith
efforts to do the right thing are market-
able to district energy end users.
Opinions matter, and good faith
efforts to do the right thing are
marketable to district energy
end users.
Actionable Strategies
In developing a plan for reducing
overall water consumption, one can take
a hierarchical approach similar to the
‘reduce-reuse-recycle’ concept that is
often applied to other waste reduction
efforts. With this method, we tackle the
easiest and least expensive solutions
first, and then proceed to more elaborate
solutions to attain further savings. The
easiest way to reduce waste – of any
resource – is to use less of it in the first
place. For district energy providers, this
means running our plants at maximum
efficiency using the least amount of
water possible, given our existing
equipment. After that has been done, we
might look for ways to reuse some of the
water that is already going through the
system, using it ‘as is’ for a second or
third process, thereby getting more