Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority (BCWSA): Energy performance

Better Buildings, Better Plants Challenge partners strive to decrease source energy use intensity (EUI), and to increase the percent improvement compared to a set baseline year. BCWSA achieved their first goal five years early, improving their energy intensity by 37% from a 2012 baseline. BCWSA has set a second goal, pledging to improve the energy intensity at five treatment plants by 20% over a ten-year period. This voluntary pledge aligns with BCWSA’s existing commitment to sustainability which has been highlighted by the completion of a number of large projects in recent years, including the installation of a 100,000 kW solar array, motor system upgrades, and HVAC focused optimizations.

Looking at the percent improvement in energy performance across all facilities can provide insight into how an organization is saving energy. 60% of BCWSA's facilities participating in the Challenge have improved energy performance since the baseline year of 2018. Two facilities have not improved energy performance since the baseline year. These properties have been targeted for additional action.

BCWSA is one of the largest water and wastewater treatment agencies in the state of Pennsylvania and treats wastewater from facilities in the surrounding Bucks County area and calculates energy intensity in terms of source purchased energy consumed (in MMBtus) per million gallons of influent water flow. The percent change in energy intensity is tracked for each facility on both a monthly and annual basis. These metrics are rolled up to the corporate level, with a corporate-wide percent improvement in energy intensity calculated by taking a weighted average of the percent change in energy intensity at the individual facilities.