Many complexities that have plagued water utilities as they attempt to rationally determine the
efficacy of water conservation programs. These difficulties fall into three categories:
conceptual - what do we mean by benefits and costs of conservation programs, and how
do those benefits and costs differ when viewed from different perspectives;
informational - from where is a water utility to obtain valid and reliable information
to estimate the benefit and cost components; and,
analytical - how should the benefit and cost information be properly compared to
make the correct decisions? What analytical tools can facilitate these comparisons?
This paper provides an overview of a recent American Water Works Association Research
Foundation sponsored study designed to address all three of these difficulties in a way that
enables water utilities of different sizes and differing levels of sophistication to better integrate
their supply-side and demand-side planning. Practical tools produced by this research include:
a Water Utility Direct Avoided Cost Estimation Model - by analyzing the direct
costs that utilities can avoid via demand reduction, water utilities define the benefits
produced by WUE programs - influenced by system simulation models, this path-breaking
work distinguishes between short-run and long-run costs and permits utilities
to consider seasonal differences in avoided costs - this model is intended to inform the
design of more valuable WUE programs;
a Benefit-Cost WUE Planning Model - this is a spreadsheet-planning tool that
quickly calculates water savings, costs, economic benefits, benefit-cost comparisons,
and bill impacts for individual conservation programs - the current version of the
model also computes cumulative results for up to 10 programs; and,
a Cost and Savings Compendium - this research also produced a compendium of
North American field studies of the costs and savings generated by WUE measures and
practices. This is a compilation of past and ongoing empirical research. Strengths and
weakness of the research are noted and summaries are provided where appropriate. Includes figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 900 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 49 |
| Published : | 06/01/2007 |
