Climate + Energy Project

Many of our readers are already familiar with the groundbreaking energy efficiency Facilities Conservation Improvement Program (FCIP) run by the KS Energy Office, which is part of the Kansas Corporation Commission.

FCIP helps public agencies finance contracts with private energy savings performance contractors (ESCOs) who provide energy audits and guarenteed energy efficiency improvements for public buildings.

According to the Star, Olathe is now considering a major energy efficiency overhaul of their water and wastewater systems. (Article below by Kevin Wright)

Olathe City Council members will vote next week on whether to become the first city in Kansas to undertake a large-scale energy efficiency project.

If they approve the contract, the project could upgrade the city’s entire water and wastewater systems, saving the city money and opening new avenues for revenue collection.

“In the short term, we don’t anticipate rates going down because these improvements are budget neutral,” said Merv Gleason deputy director of Municipal Services Department. “The important thing is that it does not cause us to increase our rates.”

And in the future, he said, the city could keep rates neutral.

The Municipal Services Department handles water, wastewater and trash and recycling collections. The department wanted to find areas within the system that would make the city more energy efficient – saving money, recapturing lost revenue and finding new revenue streams.

The staff found a state program, Kansas’ Facility Conservation Improvement Program, which would help the department become more energy efficient with the help of an outside company that specializes in energy efficiency projects.

Don Siefert, director of Municipal Services, approached the council about the program in 2006, but the city wasn’t ready to take it on.

Now it looks as though the council is ready to take the next step.

Gleason said this was a good time to take on the project because it aligns with one of the City Council’s priorities, making Olathe economically stable through energy efficiencies.

Municipal Services chose Johnson Controls, which has helped companies and cities with this type of project for more than 20 years, to develop the project and a proposal. Design work began in June. The council will consider a contract for the project Tuesday at its regular meeting.

Municipal Services developed a list of nine projects related to energy efficiency that will meet the department’s goals, Gleason said.

In the design phase, Johnson Controls “crunched the numbers” to make sure each project can meet energy efficiency standards and the city’s cost-saving goals.

The department originally had a list of 24 projects, but whittled it to nine because the others didn’t meet the department’s goals. One idea was to install wind turbines to power some city facilities. Johnson Controls found that the city would not capture the savings it wanted before it was time to replace the turbines.

Johnson Controls did pinpoint several areas within the city’s water and wastewater systems that, over time, will save the city money and make those systems more efficient.

Some of those improvements involve technology upgrades and replacing equipment at wastewater treatment and water treatment plants, improving equipment and power supplies at lift stations, water pumps and water pumping stations, changing to an automated system to read water meters and detect leaks, and using solar photovoltaic electricity generation.

“If we stay with the drive-by meters, in five to seven years, we will still not have better service than we have today,” Gleason said.

The automated meters will last longer, 15 to 20 years, and allow the city to collect data through a computer software program. This will eliminate the need for meter readers. It also will allow the city detect water leaks within a residence or business.

For example, if a house has a toilet that keeps running, the city would be able to detect the higher than normal water usage and notify the resident. It also would detect a broken sprinkler system, Gleason said.

— posted by Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org