1. PEAK DAY WATER DEMAND REDUCTION STUDY
Peter Mayer, P.E.
Principal
WaterDM

2. Peak Water Demand Patterns
*Production data from a US water provider.

3. Hypothetical 2 mgd Peak Reduction
HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE

4. Energy Sector Demand Management
Sophisticated demand-side peak shaving programs.
Typically focused on reducing air conditioning demand.
Agreement with customers.
Incentives (including reduced rates and free equipment).
Highly successful.
Implemented widely, based on need.

5. Rachio– internet enabled irrigation controller

6. Pilot Peak Day Water Reduction Research
Peter Mayer, P.E. – concept development, research lead
Rebecca Smith – co-author
Margaret Hunter, John Kij, Kevin Keane, and Jonathan Fink – financial support, customer recruitment and installation, customer data, analysis
Ric Miles, Clay Kraus, Emil Motycka – free controllers, support, peak reduction implementation
Mary Ann Dickinson – project management

7. New Jersey American Water, Service Area

8. Site Review and Controller Installation
Make and model of the existing controller
Number of zones
Characterization of the landscape in each zone
Historic irrigation programs or habits
Aerial site image
Photo of the original controller

9. Participant Recruitment by New Jersey American Water
15 sites included in pilot study
Installations completed in Aug. 2016
Wealthy neighborhood made recruitment more challenging

10. Peak Shaving Experiments
August 19 and August 26, 2016
Dates selected based on forecasted weather – hot and dry
Advance notice provided via .
Remote shut down of irrigation systems by Rachio (from Denver)
14 of 15 irrigation systems successfully shut down during each experiment
Manual override by one resident (different one each time) on day of experiment

11. Irrigation System Operation During Experiments
Household
8/14/16
8/15/16
8/16/16
8/17/16
8/18/16
8/19/16
8/20/16 1 X 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Max. Temp
99.7°F
89.6°F
94.5°F
91.6°F
87.1°F
93.4°F
90.7°F
Min. Temp
79.5°F
75.9°F
76.1°F
73.8°F
73.2°F
71.6°F
71.4°F
Precip. (in.)
0.09
0.02
= irrigation system operated
= irrigation system idle
Household
8/21/16
8/22/16
8/23/16
8/24/16
8/25/16
8/26/16
8/27/16 1 X 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Max. Temp
87.1°F
82.8°F
86.4°F
90.5°F
86.7°F
94.8°F
89.2°F
Min. Temp
73.0°F
67.1°F
58.8°F
61.2°F
65.3°F
72.1°F
69.6°F
Precip. (in.)
= irrigation system operated
= irrigation system idle

12. Peak Shaving Analysis What volume of water was shaved?
How much per home, per zone?
What range or reduction?
Best available data for this analysis came from monthly historic billed consumption provided by NJ American Water
Analysis of seasonal and non-seasonal use over past 5 years ( )
ID peak monthly demand in 2016 for each site
Analysis of peak month indoor and outdoor water use tailored to the data available for each site

13. Total, Seasonal, and Non-Seasonal Use

21. Conclusions Pilot study, small sample
Between 300 – 600 enabled systems (of different sizes) needed to shave 1 MGD (based on average results)
Promising and powerful demand management tool
More research needed – seeking new research partners
Many web-enabled controller brands
Common command protocol would greatly assist water providers
In future, participants can be recruited (like energy sector) from existing customers
Final report from AWE coming soon!

22. Peter Mayer, P.E. peter.mayer@waterdm.com
Thank You Questions?
Peter Mayer, P.E.