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Council teams with Xcel to conserve energy at wastewater plants

The days of “penny-cheap” electricity, as touted in NSP’s vintage 1960s jingles, are long gone. Today, as energy costs and concern about greenhouse gases rise, the power company — now known as Xcel Energy — is helping its customers find ways to conserve.

The Metropolitan Council’s Environmental Services Division (MCES) is among Xcel’s five largest Minnesota electric customers. MCES collects and treats wastewater for the urbanized portion of the seven-county metro area, operating eight treatment plants nonstop and treating some 255 million gallons of wastewater daily. Massive pumps, motors, blowers, and lighting and heating/air-conditioning systems ran up an energy bill of approximately $17 million in 2006.

Driven by potential financial, environmental and energy-independence benefits, MCES set an ambitious goal late in 2006 to reduce the amount of fossil-fuel energy it must purchase by 15 percent by the year 2010.

“We will look at producing more of our own renewable energy by converting energy from wastewater treatment into electricity or methane, but we feel the majority of our reduction goal is bound to come from further energy conservation,” said Bill Moore, MCES general manager.

Working in partnership to conserve energy

Toward this end, Xcel and MCES began collaborating this year on what Xcel calls a Process Efficiency Program. Xcel’s new program is designed for large industrial processes and is tailored to meet unique customer needs. It will help MCES develop a long-term energy management plan and incorporate sustainable energy-efficiency methods into its business practices and capital improvement projects.

The program has a three-phase approach:

1. Identify broad areas of energy conservation opportunities
2. Further study the opportunities and design projects
3. Implement improvements.

New program caps study costs to agency, offers rebates

Xcel’s new program offers more funding for studies for MCES. For example, a traditional program would fund 50 percent of a study up to $15,000, with MCES paying the balance. The new program calls for MCES to pay just 25 percent of the study cost, and sets a maximum cost of $7,500 for all of the combined studies done at a particular treatment facility.

“This is one of the unique features of the program for MCES,” said Scott Getty, Xcel’s account representative who works with MCES. “At the Metro Plant — MCES’s largest facility — there could be literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of studies invested in to develop a series of energy conservation opportunities, but MCES’s cost is capped at $7,500 under this program.

“We’re able to direct money toward engineering studies and rebate programs, versus marketing and awareness building, and that will help make this program more effective for MCES,” Getty said. “We believe that conservation is the cornerstone to any strong energy policy.”

MCES has received more than $2.5 million in Xcel rebates for a series of energy conservation efforts over the last decade. The Process Efficiency Program offers rebates as well, and also provides bonuses of up to 30 percent of a rebate amount for achieving annual energy-reduction goals and implementing multiple projects at the same time. The program’s long-term view will help MCES take an integrated approach rather than doing projects piecemeal. Putting all projects under one umbrella should also simplify administration and avoid missing rebate opportunities.

Program aligns with state policy

MCES’s efforts align with Minnesota’s “Next Generation Energy Act,” signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty in May. The act, in part, calls for “the state of Minnesota to achieve annual energy savings equal to 1.5 percent of annual retail energy sales of electricity and natural gas directly through energy conservation improvement programs and rate design.” Other state efforts will involve such things as updating energy codes and appliance standards, changing consumer behavior, and improving utility infrastructure.

The Metro Plant in St. Paul, which treats about 75 percent of the region’s wastewater, spends nearly $9 million a year on electricity and $685,000 on natural gas. Among the leading potential projects for this plant are:

• Redesigning the lighting in the plant’s five miles of tunnels.
• Making further improvements to the plant’s aeration system.
• Optimizing the conversion of waste heat into energy.

“We’ve developed a very good working relationship with utilities over the years in finding energy conservation opportunities, incorporating them into treatment plant improvements, and earning rebates,” said Jason Willett, MCES finance director and leader of a staff-based energy team. “We’re also working on energy collaborations with state agencies, metro-area counties and the University of Minnesota. Combining those efforts with the conservation work we’re doing with Xcel will help us move aggressively toward our overall energy-reduction goal.”