Development of an Energy Sustainability Plan for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California

Energy management is of critical importance to water and wastewater utilities in an evolving energy market. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan) has developed an Energy Sustainability Plan (ESP) and implementation roadmap to address energy market volatility, reduce energy costs and improve resiliency of its operations. The development of the ESP and associated roadmap was conducted using an innovative and holistic multi-phase planning approach, that included an in-depth financial and environmental analysis of a list of potentially viable renewable energy and energy storage projects in the retail and wholesale energy market. In addition, a multi-criteria decision analysis and scenario analysis that considered each project option under a range of plausible future conditions was performed. The energy management initiatives included in the ESP together with the continued focus on energy issues have contributed to Metropolitan’s forward-thinking approach to energy management.