Skip to main content
Username
Bruce Douglas
Proposer First Name
Bruce
Proposer Email
bdouglas@nsuwater.com
Proposer Last Name
Douglas

Boston 2021 Areas of Focus

Proposer Company/Organization
Natural Systems Utilities
Proposer Phone
(508) 675-5755
Proposer Job Title
Vice President
Proposer Additional Info
This topic falls within the water-energy nexus, that will be addressed in a February 25, 2021 webinar sponsored by Built Environment + and the Living Building Collaborative of New England: https://builtenvironmentplus.org/deep-dives-in-design-towards-net-zero-water/
Proposed Session Description
In addition to water scarcity, drivers to consider water reuse now include aging or inadequate infrastructure, resiliency, resource recovery and increasing costs for conventional water and sewer. Many communities are responding by incorporating onsite water treatment and reuse systems for both existing and new-build projects. As water reuse initiatives increase, more focus is being directed to the water-energy nexus; which is the relationship between how much water is used to generate and transmit energy, and how much energy it takes to collect, clean, transport and store water. Onsite or distributed systems are located closer to the source and point of use, which facilitates local recovery of both water and thermal energy embedded in the water. Natural Systems Utilities is currently recovering thermal energy from treated wastewater at its onsite treatment and reuse systems. These projects illustrate how distributed systems can facilitate local integration of our water and energy infrastructure, and be competitive against conventional infrastructure on water, cost and carbon savings. The MacDonald Island project, located in Alberta, Canada represents the first combination of direct water reuse with a District Energy Sharing System (DESS) recovering 240 kW of treated effluent heat energy while reducing capital expense by $3M as compared to the conventional wastewater approach. In NYC an existing in-building treatment and reuse system at The Solaire, a LEED Platnium residential tower located in Battery Park, has been retro-fitted to recover reuse water heat energy for domestic hot water heating purposes. The heat recovery system reduces the building heating costs and saves more equivalent thermal energy than used to power the water reuse system electrically. This presentation will explore the performance of these heat recovery applications and how, for the first time, they make small-scale onsite water treatment and reuse systems net energy producers.
Learning Objectives
At scale in-building or district black water reuse is generally more practical and more cost-effective than either greywater reuse or rainwater harvesting
Inbuilding blackwater reuse can make the building(s) more resilient to droughts and improve water quality by decreasing overall wastewater discharges and avoiding discharges to sewers during combined sewer overflow events.
Onsite water reuse is financially viable in New England and can have a very short payback period.
Thermal energy recovery from reclaimed water is practical and, if projects have sufficient scale, has a very short payback period, and can offset the energy demands of the onsite water reuse system, when applied on a building or district scale
Has this session been presented before?
Yes
When and Where?
American Society of Plumbing Engineers National Conference (was scheduled for 9/2020 in New Orleans, but was actually presented 12/2020 virtually)
Target Audiences Level of Expertise
Level 1 - No prior knowledge needed.
Session Format Details
One 20-minute presentations followed by Q&A

Strongest Content Connection - Boston 2021

Reviewer 1
Widjaja, Karno
Reviewer 2
Schow, Mark
Proposal #
195
Committee Decision
Being Considered

Presenters

Full Description
Recent (2019) changes in the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority's (MWRA) rule enable onsite water reuse (also known as blackwater reuse, or decentralized non-potable water reuse) practical in the MWRA service areas.