QUANTUM CONSULTING, INC. » Wastewater

RATIONALE

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:25:05 +0000

The market for process optimization (through the MWRP) in small and medium sized facilities has not been addressed for the following reasons:
•= Small and medium facilities have limited resources and generally cannot fund $100,000
process audits.
•= Engineering firms are interested in meeting discharge permits. During a particularly insightful interview, a wastewater engineer, when asked if he would ever consider identifying the minimum amount of energy required to keep a facility in compliance stated that “I’m not in the business of saving energy. I’m in the business of meeting permit.” This view permeates an industry that views its role as offering operator friendly” solutions. These firms are frankly not interested in working with and educating operators on their facility. The QC/BacGen Team has a successful track record of providing operators with the training and tools to reduce energy related expenses.
•= The QC/BacGen Team has a deep understanding of system biology and energy use.
Engineering firms that serve the wastewater industry take a more mechanical approach, usually resulting in increases to energy costs, e.g. increased filtration.

The specific market barriers facing the market for process optimization are as follows;

•= Lack of availability – Consulting engineers for the industry are focused on meeting permit with only passing reference to real energy savings. As the anecdote above implies, the wastewater-consulting engineers will not move to fill the needed void anytime soon.

•= Lack of consumer information/asymmetric information – The wastewater industry is
conservative and generally views anything new with skepticism. Local government’s are tightening their belts and are unwilling to fund many new projects. While larger urban cities have sufficient information on optimization techniques, those in smaller rural communities do not.

•= Bounded Rationality – While on paper, it would appear that process optimization is the appropriate solution for the majority of facilities, few rural communities do it without full funding. Operators are busy, and likely too busy to investigate the efficacy of each energy efficiency claim. Too busy to gather funding. Too busy to do the proper vetting required for any outlay of city funds.

Wastewater Retro-commissioning Project

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:26:59 +0000

The Municipal Wastewater Retro-commissioning Project (MWRP) is focused on increasing energy efficiency in the rural wastewater sector. The MWRP works closely with local
governments in small communities primarily in California’s Central Valley. While MWRP has been successful in moving the program forward in PG&E’s service territory, we have been
unable to gain funding for complete installations in Southern California Edison’s (Edison) territory. For this reason we seek funding to bring the MWRP to rural communities in Edison’s
territory. Using the CPUC’s program definitions, MWRP can be described as follows.

Program Type – Local Energy Efficiency Program
Program Strategy – Incentives
Program Segment – Nonresidential Process Overhaul
Customer Segment/Type – Small and Medium Usage, Non-residential Hard to
Reach (Geographic – rural)
The MWRP has received startup funding from PG&E and the California Energy Commission.

These resources have helped move the MWRP forward by funding marketing databases and materials, outreach through site visits, and eight initial installations of our process control/optimization technology. The Quantum Consulting and BacGen Technologies (QC/BacGen Team) seeks additional resources to fully fund eight (8) installations in Year 1 and to partially fund (60 percent) five (5) installations in Year 2. It is our belief that by Year 3 we should have sufficient proof of concept (case studies) for this conservative and skeptical industry such that future funding will be unnecessary. Our goal is to have a sustainable business by Year 3. Key to achieving this goal is convincing facilities to partially fund installations, which will only happen with a sufficient number of case studies. To assist the QC/BacGen Team in developing a market for process control/optimization technology we seek $1,605,150 in funding to push the program in Edison’s territory, for which we will deliver more than 6,500 MWh in energy reduction annually and more than 104,000 MWh in net life cycle
savings.1 Candidate facilities have already been identified and the QC/BacGen Team is ready to move forward.

Wastewater Retrocommissioning

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:59:02 +0000

Quantum Consulting and its technology partner, BacGen Technologies, are currently implementing two optimization or ‘retro-commissioning’ programs for municipal wastewater treatment facilities (WWTFs) in California. The goal of these programs is to achieve significant energy savings and demand reduction at these facilities. In general, WWTF ‘retro-commissioning’ is fairly simple and is predicated on two points:

Municipal WWTFs are generally over-engineered (i.e. use too much aeration, and therefore too much energy).
With proper monitoring equipment, aeration equipment can be cycled to achieve significant demand reduction and energy savings without compromising system integrity or jeopardizing permit compliance.

The Cross-Cutting Demand Reduction Program, sponsored by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and funded through Public Purpose Funds, serves municipal WWTFs in PG&E service territory. In Phase I of this program, the Quantum Consulting and BacGen Technologies (QC/BGT) Team will save a total of 3,423 MWh (and 540 kW) annually in four municipal facilities. Phase II of this program will add an additional ten facilities, for a total of fourteen (14) municipal WWTFs. On average, the QC/BGT Team expects to save 855,750 kWh and 135 kW per Phase I facility. Implementation of Phase I should be complete by December 31, 2001. Phase II of this program will follow, and should be fully implemented by March 31, 2002. The QC/BGT Team is also currently conducting the Innovative Peak Load Reduction Program, sponsored by the California Energy Commission (CEC). As part of this program, twenty (20) municipal WWTFs throughout California will receive fully-funded retro-commissioning services, and an additional one hundred (100) facilities will receive technical training and assistance. The QC/BGT Team expects to achieve a total of 6 MW of peak demand reduction through this program.

These programs take advantage of new technologies to better manage WWTF aeration delivery systems. The BacGen Technologies “tool kit” reduces the amount of aeration required through state-of-the-art, real-time process modeling and optimization. By closely monitoring and controlling key system parameters, BacGen Technologies optimizes the overall system performance. Proprietary instrumentation is installed in each wastewater system to collect real-time, cross-parameter performance data. This data is then transmitted to BacGen Technologies for analysis using internally developed modeling and optimization software. Using results from this analysis, BacGen Technologies may directly or remotely control the facility’s treatment processes to maintain permit compliance while minimizing aeration energy use. BacGen consults with a “peer review team” of world-class industry experts to continually validate its technical approaches and methodologies.

The QC/BGT Team looks forward to discussing our energy and demand reduction services with other facilities in California and beyond.