Quantifying the Relationship of Energy and Water

Quantifying the Relationship of Energy and Water

Capability: Market Insight, Channel Strategy

Axiom Tools: Effective Prediction, Local Market Econometric Modeling

Axiom worked with a major energy supplier in a top-5 U.S. market to quantify the relationship between energy use and supply of water. The work included benchmarking current volume and energy use, modeling potential energy savings and identifying the equipment and emerging technologies best suited to deliver a minimum savings of 10 GWh of energy per year.

Business Objective

  • Uncover whether 10 gigawatts of energy can be saved through the water channel in Utility’s service territory.
  • Analyze, characterize, define and forecast the water channel for Utility’s service territory.
  • Understand and identify technologies, processes and products available and how quickly they can be adopted.

Strategy

  • Interview leading water agencies, institutions, municipalities and water consultants and create an implication report
  • Research and collect water and energy quantitative data for the utility service territory, including volume, equipment type and energy usage
  • Forecast and model data using a modeling tool developed specifically for this analysis that uses actual historic data from the area
  • Identify participants, recruit and execute a Delphi study on feasibility, barriers and adoption rates for technologies

Results

  • Due to suburban expansion, groundwater usage is expected to increase, while surface water use will continue to decline in the coming decades
  • Historically, residential incentives for efficiency have been highly effective, leaving little room for further improvement in this sector
  • Treatment of water and wastewater offer the largest areas of electricity reduction
  • Infrastructure equipment efficiencies can lower energy use by up to 30 percent
  • Incentives to qualifying businesses and corporations offer potential for savings as an untapped area of improvement
Water-Energy Nexus

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