Project Desciption

The Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency (MRWPCA) operates a regional wastewater treatment plant that serves Monterey and outlying areas. It is the world’s largest water recycling facility designed for raw food crop irrigation. MRWPCA operates 25 pumping stations and a main plant that together treat 20 million gallons of wastewater per day. Engineers determined that MRWPCA has the potential for additional peak power reductions by monitoring and controlling “time of use” power requirements at the plant. Savings in part would come from qualifying for alternative PG&E rate structures, leveraging the use of the solar installation and carefully controlling monthly peak power demand. The plant set a goal to maintain peak loads below 500 kW to qualify for a lower electricity tariff that would minimize monthly costs.

In order to meet these goals, Solar City retained MC Engineering to conduct a facility audit and create an energy monitoring and management system. MC Engineering obtained in-depth knowledge of plant operations, conducted a facility audit, and targeted strategic loads to monitor. Twenty individual pumps, processes, and discretionary loads were identified for monitoring in real time. A cloud-based energy and demand monitoring system was chosen and installed that provides real time data that is readily accessible to operators, engineers, energy managers, and management.

The MRWPCA energy monitoring and demand management system was developed through a cooperative effort with Candi Controls, which provides a cloud-based platform for machine-to-machine (M2M) data monitoring and control.

By monitoring large loads that have some degree of operator discretionary control, an optimal time-of-use strategy and target usage peak can be set and maintained. The data and controls are managed through an Application Programmer Interface (API) and presented to operators through a secure web-based graphical interface on laptops, computer screens and portable iPad tablets. The API includes an Facility Overview page to provide staff with at-a-glance real time power data.