Municipal Water and Wastewater Treatment
Water and wastewater treatment facilities in New York State consume more than 3 billion kWh of electricity per year. With rising infrastructure demands, increasingly-stringent regulatory requirements, and decreasing resources, municipalities are looking for cost-saving measures to reduce operating costs. Municipalities are also actively pursuing ways in which to reduce their carbon footprint.
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Through a variety of cost-shared technical assistance, research, demonstration, and outreach programs, NYSERDA encourages municipalities in New York State to adopt commercially-available and innovative technologies that improve the energy efficiency and economics of their treatment facilities, while also meeting or exceeding regulatory requirements and reducing the overall environmental impacts of these facilities. |
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NYSERDA Programs
Assistance to Identify/ Install Energy-Efficiency Opportunities and Develop/Demonstrate Innovative Technologies
 NYSERDA offers programs designed to assist municipalities in making sound energy decisions about their water and wastewater treatment facilities. These include support for customized energy evaluations through the FlexTech Program, capital incentives for the installation of energy-efficient equipment and processes through the Existing Facilities Program, and support for developing and demonstrating innovative technologies.
The RPS includes two components: a Main Tier and a Customer-Sited Tier. The Main Tier consists primarily of medium- to large-scale electric generation facilities that sell their electricity into the wholesale power market administered by the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO). The Customer-Sited Tier consists of "behind-the-meter" facilities that are not currently cost-competitive with existing large-scale generation, but have value in their potential to be located near urban load centers where power prices are higher and/or provide localized environmental and economic benefits. Customer-Sited Tier projects may be located at residences, commercial or industrial facilities, and municipal facilities. Several municipal wastewater treatment plants are currently participating in NYSERDA’s anaerobic digester gas-to-electricity (ADG-to-Electricity) program.
Focus on Municipal Water and Wastewater Facility Energy Efficiency
The Focus program provides treatment plant operators, as well as elected officials, with resources to identify, evaluate, and implement energy efficiency improvement projects. Outreach materials that have been, or will be, developed include:
Download Excel Viewer to view the Excel files above.
Tools for Improving Plant Efficiency
Benchmarking
Benchmarking provides water and wastewater treatment plants a method for developing a baseline of plant energy performance. Once the baseline has been developed, plants can track the improvement in their energy performance over time (internal benchmarking) or compare their energy performance to that of other similar facilities (external benchmarking). To develop a benchmark, energy measurements, as well as flow, loading, and other data specific to the facilities are collected. Not only can benchmarking be used to develop a baseline of current facility energy performance, but it can help identify efficiency opportunities within a facility, as well as identify facilities that use significantly greater energy than its peers. Benchmarking can also be used to help verify savings associated with the installation of energy efficient equipment or process changes within a facility.
Submetering
Submetering allows a facility to directly monitor the energy consumption of individual pieces of equipment or unit processes. Monitoring is accomplished through installation of power-metering equipment on the equipment or within the process. Submetering can also be used to benchmark plant energy performance, by comparing data collected from the meters with historical data. Precise, direct measurements of energy use have been found to generate significant opportunities for energy cost savings. In October of 2006, NYSERDA completed energy evaluations of 11 wastewater treatment plants in New York State. A summary report of the Submetering Program can be found here.
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Case Studies
Gloversville-Johnstown Wastewater Treatment Facility
Wastewater Treatment Facility - Premium Efficiency Motors
North Tonawanda - Wastewater Process Study
North Tonawanda - Technical Assistance
Oswego Water Department - Flextech Program
Joint Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant - Evaluation of Aeration System Alternatives
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NYSERDA Water and Wastewater Reports
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Other Information
Other Potential State Assistance
Contact Us
For more information on the Water and Wastewater Treatment Program, contact:
NYSERDA's Focus on Water and Wastewater Ask the Expert
Silvia Marpicati - 518-250-7328
Kathleen O'Connor at 1-866-NYSERDA, or 518-862-1090, ext. 3422
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