Council energy reduction program is award finalist

The partnership between Metropolitan Council Environmental Services (MCES) and Xcel Energy was among three finalists in the 2009 Minnesota Environmental Initiative (MEI) Awards competition in the Energy and Climate Protection category.

A project with large energy savings for the Metro Plant is the cleaning of fine-pore ceramic diffusers that deliver air to the wastewater in the treatment tanks.

The MEI awards program is an annual recognition of 15 innovative environmental partnerships from across Minnesota. More than 70 partnerships were nominated, and three finalists were selected in fiv categories. The winner in the Energy and Climate Protection category was the “Minneapolis Climate Change Micro Grants Initiative.”

The MCES and Xcel partner project, “Industrial Process Efficiency CIP Program,” laid out a systematic approach for identifying and evaluating energy-saving opportunities, then designing and implementing changes that would reduce energy usage.

In 2007-2008, MCES implemented projects that will save 23 million kilowatt-hours of energy and $1.4 million annually. With additional projects in store for 2009-2010, MCES is on target to meet and perhaps surpass its four-year goal of reducing energy usage by 35 million kilowatt-hours, which equates to a 15% reduction from energy usage in 2006.

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