Cities around the world abound with leaking and corroded pipes, inefficient and oversized pumps, faulty valves and other problems. As global urban population explodes, cities are required to deliver more water through systems often inadequate to meet current requirements. Access to water resources are clearly critical for health, sanitation, and economic development. In most countries it is usually the poor who are left without critical access and must look at potentially expensive and/or unhealthy alternatives.

Municipal water systems can take advantage of many highly-efficient and cost-effective opportunities to increase supply while decreasing electricity consumption per unit of water delivered.

The methodology developed by QT takes advantage of a classical approach to measuring energy efficiency. It looks at the electricity consumption per unit of water delivered. The water utility can increase its gross water delivery to meet basic human needs while vastly reducing the kilowatt hours needed to deliver each liter of water.

To develop a baseline, the project developer simply calculates the amount of power it takes to deliver water - as measured in kwh/liter delivered - in the baseline year. Once this is established, each year the baseline is recalculated using the total actual water delivered multiplied by the baseline calculation of kwh/liter. This is then compared to the actual kilowatt hours used to deliver the total amount of water in the project year. Essentially, the pre-project kwh/liter ratio is compared with the post-project ratio (which is presumably lower) to determine CERs.

While this approach is straight forward and simple, perhaps the most exciting aspect of this methodology is that it leaves the water utility with an unlimited list of technologies and approaches to improve system efficiency. AM0020 actual helps water utilities take a system-wide approach to renovations and rehabilitations, which is universally seen as the most effective method.