NEW Water: 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.  As part of the Better Plants Challenge NEW Water have pledged to improve the energy intensity at its 15 facilities by 35% over a 10 year period.  This voluntary pledge aligns with NEW Water’s long standing commitment to sustainability, which is highlighted by the recently completed R2E2 (Resource Recovery and Electrical Energy) project. However, in 2018 NEW Water’s old solids handling system was running alongside the new R2E2 system during its start-up, significantly increasing energy consumption in the short-term. It is expected that the R2E2 project, and the closure of the old system, will result in a significant improvement in 2019.

Looking at the percent improvement in energy performance across all facilities can provide insight into how an organization is saving energy. NEW Water's 15 facilities are made up by two waste water treatment plants and 13 pumping stations. The main waste water treatment plant alone represents more than 85% of NEW Water's energy consumption, so the R2E2 project's completion is expected to result in significant improvement to the overall energy intensity target, starting in 2019.

NEW Water 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.