{"id":95,"date":"2016-07-07T17:38:18","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T17:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southwestefc.unm.edu\/?p=95"},"modified":"2025-10-20T17:50:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T17:50:13","slug":"have-you-seen-the-electric-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/have-you-seen-the-electric-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Have you seen the electric bill?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The Importance of Understanding the Water Energy Nexus<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For many water systems, the electric (or energy) bill is one of the largest expenses regularly incurred by the water utility.&nbsp; It is also one of the most controllable expenses a water utility will have.&nbsp; However, water utility managers oftentimes never see the bill.&nbsp; Understanding your utility\u2019s energy expenses is one of the first steps to controlling and likely reducing your energy expenses.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->It takes electricity to produce water.&nbsp; It takes water to produce electricity.&nbsp; Both utilities are vital to a community\u2019s success.&nbsp; Reducing the consumption of one reduces the cost of producing the other.&nbsp; U.S. public drinking water systems use roughly 39.2 billion kWh per year, which corresponds to about 1% of total electricity use in the U.S.<sup>&nbsp;<\/sup>(Electric Power Research Institute, Water Research Foundation, November 2013)&nbsp; The electricity industry is second only to agriculture as the largest user of water in the United States.&nbsp; U.S. citizens may indirectly depend upon as much water turning on the lights and running appliances as they directly use taking showers and watering lawns.<sup>&nbsp;<\/sup>(Sandia National Laboratories, 2014)&nbsp; For the most part, both utilities are facing issues such as aging infrastructure, sustainability and climate change.&nbsp; We cannot assume the future is like the past in terms of climate, technology, and the evolving decision landscape.&nbsp; Aging infrastructure brings an opportunity to make some changes&nbsp;(Department of Energy, 2014)<\/p>\n<p>There are many ways that a water utility can better control and likely reduce the energy bill.&nbsp; Make sure you understand how the energy utility charges you (contact the energy provider for clarification if needed).&nbsp; Also, understand how your system is using energy.&nbsp; Pumping is almost always the highest consumer of energy within a water system.&nbsp; Understanding how and when those pumps (and other energy consumers) are using energy can allow for consideration of simple operational changes that can lead to potentially significant cost savings.&nbsp; Take a look at your water loss numbers as well.&nbsp; If you are spending money to produce clean water that isn\u2019t being sold, but is leaking out of the distribution system, you may need to consider a water loss assessment.<\/p>\n<p>End users can also benefit by understanding the water energy nexus.&nbsp; Conserving water will also conserve energy in the household.&nbsp; EPA is encouraging the use of WaterSense labeled products.&nbsp; EPA\u2019s WaterSense group estimates that leaving a faucet run for 5 minutes uses as much energy as leaving a 60 watt light bulb on for 22 hours.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about the water energy nexus and how to control and potentially reduce your energy use go to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/efcnetwork.org\">efcnetwork.org<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Photo by:&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/401kcalculator.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-rapid_p=\"46\">401kcalculator.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Importance of Understanding the Water Energy Nexus For many water systems, the electric (or energy) bill is one of the largest expenses regularly incurred by the water utility.&nbsp; It is also one of the most controllable expenses a water utility will have.&nbsp; However, water utility managers oftentimes never see the bill.&nbsp; Understanding your utility\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-utility-bill"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2871,"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/2871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swefc.unm.edu\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}