Measuring Energy Efficiency in Urban Water Systems Using a Mechanistic Approach
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Volume 18, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper presents an energy efficiency metric for the raw water extraction process at urban water systems. Raw water pumping is the second largest energy consumer at water treatment plants after finished water pumping. United States water utilities are using more benchmarking metrics to assess performance and to compare their energy efficiency with other utilities. This trend has become especially prevalent among water and wastewater utilities. This paper proposes a thermodynamic score to provide complementary information of a utility’s energy efficiency. The thermodynamic score arises from estimating the minimum energy required by the system in contrast to the benchmarking method in which the basis is an empirical approach. The thermodynamic score proved to be an effective additional tool for measuring energy efficiency in most cases may have significant limitations in others. However, the energy analysis developed for the thermodynamic score has further applications on proactive asset management of water utilities.
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Acknowledgments
Authors gratefully acknowledge the colaboration of the following water utilities in the case study. Their active participation and feedback made this research possible. In alphabetical order: Blacksburg Christiansburg VPI Water Authority, City of Lexington (Maury Service Authority), City of Manassas Water Dept, Danville Utilities, Fairfax Water, Newport News Waterworks, Virginia Beach Dept. of Public Utilities, and Western Virginia Water Authority.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 18 • Issue 2 • June 2012
Pages: 139 - 145
Copyright
© 2012. American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 19, 2011
Accepted: Aug 3, 2011
Published online: Aug 5, 2011
Published in print: Jun 1, 2012
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