Ask the Expert: Elena Bailey with Ovivo Water and John Masters with Danfoss

As part of our “Ask the Expert” series we queried two experts on water and wastewater system energy efficiency.

Elena Bailey is the director of business development in North America for Ovivo Water. Ms. Bailey has been with Ovivo for 26 years, where she served as the global technology and sustainability director for five years prior to her current position. Ms. Bailey has a BS in civil engineering, an MS in Environmental engineering, and is a registered PE in Texas.

John Masters is currently the vice president of sales for the water/wastewater division for Danfoss, where he is responsible for North American sales and support of variable frequency drives, soft starters and other ancillary motor control products into the water and wastewater markets.

Alliance: If there was one existing technology or process that could generate significant energy savings in the water/wastewater treatment sector, what would it be?

John Masters: Variable Speed Control technologies such as Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) have been proven to provide significant energy savings in both aeration blower and pumping system applications in the water/wastewater treatment sector. The proven technology and energy savings potential combined with the ease of installation makes VFD technology well suited for both retrofit installations as well as new construction. VFD technology not only can reduce energy consumption by as much as 60%, but will also provide increased flexibility and better process control.

Elena Bailey: It’s hard to point to one, but the main problem is that much of wastewater treatment energy use is due to increased water quality regulations that do not take energy impacts into consideration. Anaerobic digestion, sonication, ultra-fine bubble aeration, membrane bioreactors and zeolite ammonia removal processes/technologies can treat wastewater and help achieve near or net zero energy use in wastewater treatment plants.

Alliance: What do you view as the largest barriers to energy efficiency in the water/wastewater treatment sector and what is needed to overcome them?

Elena Bailey: The most important barrier is that effluent limits, not energy use, drive wastewater plant manager decisions. We need to look at ways to realistically treat water for intended purposes and treat wastewater as resource for water, energy, and nutrients. There is a lot of perfectly usable anaerobic gas being flared and this will continue as long as incentives are not there to recapture it.

John Masters: There are several barriers that inhibit widespread implementation of energy efficient technologies. The first barrier is first-cost investment challenges. Often, this barrier can be overcome through education and better understanding of the relatively short payback periods afforded by energy saving technologies such as VFDs.

Also, regulatory issues can act as barriers in a couple different ways: 1) Lack of enforcement, meaning there are no penalties or consequences for using excessive energy to pump or treat water the way there are penalties for not meeting water quality standards.  Until there is some policy/standard or inducement for implementing energy saving technologies, adoption of these technologies will continue at a slow pace. 2) Regulatory agencies are not aligned on a state-by-state basis to allow for acceptance of innovative and alternative energy saving technologies on a large scale basis. In most cases these technologies require local regulatory approvals on a case-by-case basis making them less attractive as a technology of choice during design.

Please submit questions for our "Ask the Expert" column to rlung@ase.org and we’ll do our best to answer them in upcoming articles.