How the Energy Efficiency Industry Can Further Water Conservation (Day 6)

One of the current trend lines I see as central to western water and climate change issues is the attempted return to large infrastructure projects, including a proposed peripheral canal in California‘s Sacramento San Joaquin Delta, Las Vegas’ simultaneous plans to build another intake pipe in Lake Mead as well as to pipe groundwater from a desert hundreds of miles away, and plans for the Flaming Gorge Pipeline to the Front Range of Colorado (which recently was dealt a setback). While shoring up supply is important especially in the face of climate change, many of these projects have been decried by the public for both their environmental risks and the potential that they are not truly necessary.

I believe that in many cases, this latter claim may be true. I have been working in energy efficiency for the last few years, and as I return to the water industry, I hope to bring important knowledge and ideas with me. Energy efficiency has been a quickly exploding field. Many states now have decoupled utility revenue from sales, meaning that utilities are not penalized for successful efficiency programs. In addition, some states, especially California, have allocated significant funds for evaluation, measurement, and verification programs that help ensure utilities that their money is actually saving energy. In fact, utilities often do not receive payment for their energy efficiency programs unless savings have been proven.

While water conservation has been in force for many decades, it has not reached the level of implementation, oversight, and especially evaluation, as has energy efficiency. Many water utilities still struggle with the loss of revenue that results from successful water conservation programs. Some have cut back on their conservation programs as a result. In addition, evaluation of water conservation programs has been extremely lacking in many locations. It is hard to avoid seeking new water supplies when you cannot trust that your conservation programs will save sufficient water.

There are many opportunities for the water industry to learn from the energy industry in the efficiency and conservation arena. Whether or not large infrastructure projects are necessary in a given case, utilities or municipalities should ensure that the public can trust that all potential demand management opportunities have been explored prior to developing additional supplies. Similarly, as states are beginning to adopt aggressive renewable portfolio standards (which have their own implications for water that I will not address here), water utilities should make sure that any new supplies needed are as sustainable and renewable as possible. The New York Times recently ran an editorial suggesting that San Francisco has not explored all possible local resources (i.e. water recycling, groundwater, and rainwater harvesting) that would reduce its reliance on water from Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite National Park. There are many other locations (including, ironically, New York) that have similarly not thoroughly explored such local options - which may not always look good, depending on their own environmental and energy impacts.