5 Foolproof Tactics to Uncover Savings in Your Water Bill

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, large commercial buildings in the US use approximately 980 million gallons per day. On a daily basis, they used an average of 22,000 gallons per building, 55.6 gallons per thousand square feet, and 50.1 gallons
per worker. This amount of water consumption is staggering especially given the fact that water and energy consumption are tightly connected.

Water extraction, purification, pumping, heating, treating and disposing water are all different activities that use energy. In your facilities you might be using energy to pump and heat water as well as to run your HVAC equipment. Hence the usage of water has a high impact on your building’s energy demand and performance. The EPA also published a study about the various  uses of water in commercial buildings. The figure below gives an idea of the various uses of water.

As we are approaching summer, you might find that there is a sudden spike in your water bills. You might be used to higher water bills during the summer compared to winter but the question is do they seem even higher? What is causing this increase?

You are not alone in this challenge of finding resources and initiatives to help with saving water, reducing costs and increasing water efficiency. Water efficiency projects are on the rise and water-efficient practices help you with many opportunities for savings. For example:

1. To achieve cost savings
2. Increase your competitive advantage in the marketplace
3. Reduce the risks in case of water scarcity (especially in states like California)
4. Increase opportunities in the green building initiatives

Below we provide a number of ways you can use the latest technology to your advantage in determining insights into your water consumption, usage as well as the bills presented to you. These are some of the best practices of water-management that are being used today.

1.Use of proper metering and monitoring:

Peter Drucker rightly said, “What gets measured, gets improved”. Hence the use of meters and sub-meters is important to enable facility managers to measure various metrics related to water usage in your building. Some of them are :

1. Identify what areas consume the most water
2. Track progress of water-efficiency measures
3. Identify any leakages causing an increase in the water bills
4. Track any potential savings
5. Find opportunities to reduce water usage in specific areas

These meters can in turn be integrated with your building management systems (BMS) so that you can implement a larger plan to conserve water. You can collect data from these systems at a frequency that you determine, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly. You can also configure it to trigger alerts whenever certain anomalies are detected.

2. Using IoT for smart water:

Internet of Things or IoT is the latest technology that is being used everywhere from smart cities to smart buildings. IoT uses sensors embedded in various devices and collects the data via the Internet. It is used to capture meaningful information and communicate this information to the cloud so that it can help with storing the data in an expensive manner. Many facilities are using this technology to monitor objects like water pipes and water meters. The advantage of this technology is that it makes use of hundreds and thousands of sensors across your buildings and facilities and connects the data so that you can see the relationships between all the data. For example if your electricity bill is more, it can be tracked with using it to heating huge volume of water. It can also use some algorithms to measure water usage and detect leaks as well as deliver alerts to your mobile device when one is detected. You can also combine it with other automated control technologies to remotely shut-off the water main in case there is a fear of flooding.

3. Structured approach to reduce water consumption:

You can use a structured approach by categorizing areas where the water consumption can be reduced. Some of these areas are:

1. Sanitary fixtures
2. Commercial kitchens
3. Outdoor water uses
4. Mechanical systems
5. Lab and medical equipment

Calculating project costs and anticipated annual water savings, can be an effective metric for prioritizing projects for inclusion in this water-reduction action plan. In most cases, retrofitting or replacing equipment can also save energy, further reducing the simple payback period and increasing project cost-effectiveness.

4. Predict your next bill:

With the advent of IoT, there is ability to track, monitor and store water meter data. Property and facility managers who struggle to track individual and granular water consumption can now access granular information. Installing sub-meters can also be used to get accurate data. IoT allows storage of this data on the cloud and by using the predictive analytics; you can have a fair idea of how much your next bill is going to be.

Fundamentally, predictive algorithms aim to scrutinize data from multiple variables and determine outputs (i.e. dependent variables) based on those factors. If used effectively, this can lead to better water management.

It can also be used to detect leakage in pipes based on historical data such as maintenance and failure records as well as minimum flow of water.

Another important function that you can use with advanced analytics is water demand analysis. This can be used for budgeting and infrastructure investment purposes. Demand analysis includes customer segmentation and their usage of water and influential factors such as water price, size of the facilities and the number of occupants.

5. Alternate water sources:

You can also augment your water consumption by various alternate sources of water or reuse of some of the water. Alternate sources include:

• Harvesting rainwater
• Foundational drain water
• Treated gray water
• Condensed water from air handlers and chillers
• Filtering and using reverse osmosis
• Cooling equipment water

You must carefully assess the quality of the above water sources before deciding to use it in your facility. General considerations for reuse of these sources of water include the quality of the source and the potential treatment that may be needed to meet the quality criteria.

These alternate water sources can be used for:

• Irrigation/external landscaping
• Cooling towers and chillers
• Sanitary flushing
• Water for decorative landscaping like ponds, fountains, and waterfalls
• Other uses not requiring potable water

Conclusion:

In conclusion, in today’s economic and commercial environment, there is a strong business case for undertaking activities to reduce water consumption, which in turn can reduce energy and other operating costs. By implementing water-efficiency best management practices, commercial and institutional facility owners and managers can achieve cost savings, increase competitive advantage and reduce risk associated with water usage.