The Water Research Foundation-Energy Commission partnership began with a workshop in 2003 to identify and prioritize research areas and projects that would advance emerging technologies and best practices to improve energy efficiency, reliability, and costs for water and wastewater treatment facilities (see Water Research Foundation project #2923, “Water and Wastewater Industry Energy Efficiency: A Research Roadmap”, co-sponsored with the Energy Commission). Twenty-nine participants representing water and wastewater utilities, energy providers, and energy affiliated research organizations attended the workshop and identified 44 research projects to address eight primary research areas, including advanced treatment processes, desalination, energy generation and recovery, societal and institutional issues, energy optimization, sustainability, decentralization, and total energy management. Twenty-five of the identified research projects were related to drinking water utilities; the remaining 19 were specific to wastewater utilities.Seven of the highest-priority research projects identified at the workshop have been funded through the Water Research Foundation-Energy Commission partnership. Five of these projects have been completed:
The project Energy Index Development for Benchmarking Water and Wastewater Utilities developed and tested a multi-parameter benchmark score method that results in a metric score to give both water and wastewater utilities (two separate models) a relative assessment of energy performance. The project formed the foundation for the portfolio managers used in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Water and Wastewater ENERGY STAR program.
One additional Water Research Foundation-Energy Commission partnership project is underway: