Ms. Welch is a vice president and client account manager in Jacobs' Birmingham office with over 24 years' experience delivering projects in the water and wastewater market across the southeastern U.S. She holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Auburn University.

• Add Second Speaker

Mr. Palmer is a client service leader and program manager in Jacobs' Atlanta office. He has over 18 years' experience delivering projects in the water and wastewater market, largely focused in the Tennessee and Atlanta-area markets. He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Michigan Technological University.

Implementing renewable energy solutions at water resource recovery facilities (WRRF) is not a new concept.  Over the past decade, there have been multiple utilities that have reduced their energy consumption and maximized their energy recovery by implementing renewable energy and technology advancements at their WRRF.  These have included energy recovery from biogas, beneficial reuse of biosolids, and energy recovery from wastewater from sewer thermal recovery, as well as implementation of other renewable technologies such as solar.  As we as a nation continue the path towards energy source diversification and transition, there is increasing focus on how various industries can best incorporate renewable sources of energy into their organizations.

To incentivize and offset the cost challenges that can be associated with this shift in energy sources, the U.S. Congress recently passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.  This Act contains numerous opportunities for resilience-based funding with one of the most immediate potential impacts available to utilities being the renewable energy tax credit provisions.  The IRA provides for the extension of existing 30% tax credits to people who install solar or other renewable energies at their homes, but also includes a provision that allows tax-exempt organizations (such as water/wastewater utilities) to receive their renewable energy tax credit as a direct payment.  This provides a unique opportunity for utilities to not only reduce overall energy usage, but save significantly on the cost associated with implementing these renewable energy solutions.

One example of how this can be practically implemented is the City of Chattanooga’s Waste Resources Division’s (WRD) Moccasin Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant (MBWWTP).  This plant has an average daily flow of approximately 65 million gallons per day and a total permitted capacity of 230 million gallons per day. Utilizing the current treatment processes, the MBWWTP uses on average 51 million kWh at a total power cost of $3.8M annually, which is 60% of the total City facilities power usage. The City originally moved forward with a study, design, constructed a 3.2 MW photovoltaic cell installation at the MBWWTP site. The goal of the project was to utilize approximately 10 acres of space for solar panel installation. Through a collaborative design process and unique procurement, the City was able to increase the total project output by approximately 30% to a 4 MW system in the same area and include the latest technology panels. The City’s steadfast desire for green efficient energy usage has led to an approximate annual reduction of 12% of the plant usage and 6% of the total City’s usage.

This presentation will discuss the opportunities presented by the IRA for utilities in Alabama and then present the process that the City of Chattanooga and Jacobs used to develop a unique approach and navigate significant challenges on the path of reducing energy and the carbon footprint of one of the largest Wastewater Treatment Facilities in the Southeastern United States.