As communities grow in population, there is an associated increase in water consumption and wastewater generation. One approach to meet this increasing demand is to build new (or expand existing) drinking water and wastewater treatment facilities, including the pumps, conveyance, storage facilities, etc., required to treat and deliver potable water to consumers and convey and treat the resulting wastewater.
In addition to the high capital costs associated with this approach, it also has significant impacts on greenhouse gas generation.
Realizing the high costs associated with increasing water supply to serve their growing populations, some larger municipalities have found more cost-effective and environmentally sustainable alternatives to incentivize people to conserve water. The conserved water then provides the extra capacity to provide for their populations. Thus, five Ontario municipal governments in particular – City of Toronto, York Region, Region of Peel, City of Guelph, and the Region of Waterloo – operate various water conservation programs aimed at residents and industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) facilities.
To continue the focus on water and energy conservation efforts, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s Partners in Project Green program established a Municipal Eco-Cluster working group, which convened from February 2017 to December 2018. The Municipal Eco-Cluster (funded by the Independent Electricity System Operator’s Education and Capacity Building Program 4.0) offered collaborative access to industry experts and municipal stakeholders, providing a unique connection driving conservation of resources.
The objective of the Municipal Eco-Cluster was to showcase a set of capital projects derived from the implementation of best practices, along with the development of case studies that could be shared with other target audience municipalities and government stakeholders on the benefits of water conservation through the lens of energy footprint and GHG emissions’ reduction.
WET program
The Region of Waterloo’s Water Efficient Technology (WET) program has both home and business versions for ICI facilities and homes. For ICI facilities, the WET program provides a cost-share water conservation and incentive program, which generally provides the following:
- Provides flexibility for determining a scope (and hence cost) appropriate for the size and complexity of a facility.
- A facility can choose an appropriate consultant to conduct the water assessment and are entitled to a 50/50 cost share program.
- Concurrent energy efficiency assessment can be bundled with the water conservation assessment.
- Up to $100,000 in incentives to offset capital costs for installation of water-efficiency measures at a rate of $0.40/L water saved per average day. These financial incentives are applicable to facilities that achieve water savings if payback of capital costs takes two years or more.
This approach encourages direct and indirect benefits such as reduced utility costs (water, electricity, and natural gas costs), the potential implementation of green initiatives, and the reduction of targets as directed by corporate requirements or government regulations.