Flex Your Power Case Study: Santa Clara Valley Water District

In response to the energy crisis of 2001, Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) enhanced existing energy efficiency improvement programs, lowered air conditioning and lighting usage and installed backup generators and additional battery power to increase backup power capability and backup power to critical operations. SCVWD's actions consisted of four separate and district projects:
- Enhancement to existing energy planning and management program,
- Short-term immediate reliability project,
- Long-term enhanced energy management planning project, and
- Alternate energy source projects.
SCVWD also partnered with the City of San Jose to develop an outreach and advertising campaign called, "Tales From the Grid" to encourage energy and water conservation.

Besides attempting to prevent rolling blackouts, the City of San Jose wanted to participate in the water conservation program to reduce the amount of treated wastewater that is released into San Francisco Bay.
Specific goals included:
-Continue to support SCVWD's mission of water supply and management in spite of external power interruptions,
- Provide 24-hour battery backup for SCADA instrumentation and communications,
-Provide indefinite power backup via backup generators for critical source pumping, water treatment and emergency operations, and
- Reduce HVAC and lighting use to prudent levels.

SCVWD's energy conservation, alternative energy source and contingency programs were a success. The district did not lose a minute of critical operations time during or after the 2001 energy crisis. The natural gas generator program will enable the district to firm up short-term temporary reliability enhancements and provide prudent management of district's electrical power resources to assure a reliable, environmentally sensitive and economically sound source of uninterrupted electricity. The solar projects are expected to provide needed power in an economic, environmentally sensitive and reliable fashion and ensure the operation of systems and equipment critical to the SCVWD mission through distributed generation. Savings were estimated to be one-third to one-half the cost of PG&E power. The diesel generators ensured the operation of systems and equipment critical to the SCVWD mission even during rolling blackouts. The project resulted in lowered usage rates of HVAC and lighting and reduced pumping and high power use operation during peak power periods and stage alerts.
Between the winter and fall of 2001, 544 rebates for washers in apartment laundry facilities and 104 for laundromats were issued, for a total of 648 rebates. The natural gas savings for these 648 washers was estimated at 5.7 to 9.4 thousand therms per year and the electric savings was estimated at 51 to 100 thousand kWh per year. The washers save approximately 13.5 million gallons of water each year.