Clearway Energy, Energy Center San Francisco
Prior to the installation of the BART groundwater recovery project, ECSF was among the top water consumers in San Francisco. The makeup water requirements were in excess of 80% which was around 100 million gallons of year of City potable water.
Aside from overcoming the technical challenges of recovering groundwater from a remote location, piping it to the plant, and installing a water treatment system that would recover greater than 85% of that groundwater for boiler makeup use, the real innovation of the project was the coordination of a state transportation agency (BART), a local government utility (SFPUC) and a private company (ECSF) to collaborate and achieve 30 million gallons of water savings per year.
The project was divided into 3 sub-projects. First, new pumps with higher output pressure were supplied by ECSF to BART who led all of the installation and electrical upgrades required to make them operational at the Powell St. Station. The SFPUC provided a $500k grant for the water recovery project which helped make the investment by ECSF pencil out. Additionally, the SFPUC had to create a new billing category to address the RO discharge stream that was being created since the volume of that stream was not tied to a water meter. Next, a 750 ft pipeline (See Figure 2) was installed by ECSF transporting BART groundwater to the ECSF plant. The City of San Francisco was also able to provide major assistance with the excavation and traffic permits required to install this pipeline at a congested point on Market St. Finally, ECSF installed the complete Desalitech-based RO water treatment system (See Figure 5) that allowed recovery of 85% of the BART water received. The project could not have been completed without the 3-prong participation of BART, the SFPUC, and ECSF.
Gordon Judd, Clearway Energy
1800 West Park Drive, Suite 350
Westborough, MA 01581 USA
Phone +1 (508) 366-9339
Fax +1 (508) 366-0019
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