Alliance Report Offers Energy-Efficient Solutions to Worldwide Drought, Energy Shortages; Case Studies Describe Strategies in Use on Six Continents

Just as the United Nations has sounded an alarm about the water crisis threatening two-thirds of the world's population — and with large portions of the U.S. facing drought conditions — the Alliance to Save Energy is releasing a report on the most energy-efficient and water-efficient ways to meet water needs. Watergy™: Taking Advantage of Untapped Energy and Water Efficiency Opportunities in Municipal Water Systems details energy-efficiency measures that are applicable worldwide, from U.S. cities to developing nations and describes projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, and North and South America.

The report coins the phrase "watergy efficiency" to define the range of water efficiency and energy efficiency activities that help water utilities provide consumers with water services while saving energy. Environmental protection and improved service are added payoffs. The report identifies more than 30 municipalities currently using a range of simple, cost-effective strategies to reduce energy use while maintaining or even improving water service.

"With the world's urban population expected to double within the next 40 years and only half of urban dwellers currently having water connections or access to sufficient energy supplies, municipal water utilities have a powerful incentive to pursue watergy efficiency," said the report's author, Alliance Program Manager Kevin James. "But the beauty of watergy efficiency is that easily implemented efficiency strategies can cut current water consumption by as much as 25 percent. In the developing world, where the cost of energy to supply water may easily consume half of a municipality's budget, those savings could be used to expand water service to new or underserved customers or for other pressing needs, such as education, public transportation, and health care."

Alliance Co-Chair and former Osram Sylvania Inc. President Dean T. Langford noted that the report is intended to "attract the attention of decision makers charged with the management of water resources." He added, "The potential benefits to individuals around the world range from cleaner air to improved economic opportunity to better utility service for lower costs."

The Alliance report identifies common water delivery problems, from the easily identified such as leaks and malfunctioning equipment to those harder to detect, such as improper system layout or degraded pipes. Solutions range from equipment upgrades to water reclamation and reuse.

Case studies interspersed throughout the report provide lessons and strategies such as these:

• Focusing on watergy efficiency, Austin, Texas's Water and Wastewater Utility promotes every facet of water utility efficiency with steps such as aggressive consumer education and marketing of water efficiency improvement programs. The city's rigorous water use and water flow monitoring programs have reduced its unaccounted-for water to an admirable 8 percent, while a consumption monitoring system pinpoints water wasters that are ripe for a water audit.
• Focusing on demand-side management, Rand Water, a nonprofit NGO in Johannesburg, South Africa — a country designated as "water-stressed" — works to reduce water waste in its high-demand, scarce-supply setting by educating and raising consumer awareness and by empowering its 10 million industrial, commercial, and residential customers to use water wisely. In addition to consumer education, Rand's water initiatives, carried out with the support of local councils and communities, include a school conservation program which provides teachers with lesson plans and teaching materials and a water conservation website that helps consumers save water and report leaks.
• Focusing on supply-side management, the Brazilian state of Ceará identified the water and wastewater company, CAGECE, as a major potential source of electricity demand reduction when recent electricity shortfalls created the threat of blackouts. Among its energy-saving measures are creation of a procedures manual focused on energy saving in motor and pump startup, development of specifications for efficient equipment with reasonable payback periods, and study of cogeneration to reduce peak electricity purchases.
• Another supply-side case study concerns Indore, India, a town of almost two million inhabitants that has outgrown the capacity of a major water main built in the late 1970s. The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC), eager to defer investment in new water lines, reduce current costs, and improve services, partnered with the Alliance to Save Energy and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop and implement a comprehensive water efficiency plan. To date, IMC has identified savings of more than 1.6 million rupees (US$35,000) that can be realized without additional capital expenditures.

The Watergy report is a project of the Alliance's International Program, which works on five continents to save energy around the world, and its Sustainable Cities Initiative and Municipal Water Pumping Efficiency programs. The report was funded by the Office of Energy, Environment, and Technology in the Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade Bureau, USAID. The program activities described in the report are supported by USAID, the U.S. Asian Environmental Partnership, and the U.S. Department of Energy.