If you've noticed your water has a bit of an orange hue recently, don't fret! The color is a natural tint from organic materials such as leaves in our Bull Run Watershed. The leaves affect the color, but not the quality or taste of the water. Water discoloration happens each year here in Portland, with our autumn water disappearing along with the last of the leaves in the trees.
In April 2005, the City Council passed a policy requiring all city constructed buildings to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold standard for energy efficiency. The Water Bureau recently finished the City of Portland’s first LEED Gold Certified Building by renovating its Interstate Meter Shop. The Water Bureau achieved LEED Gold by including the following energy efficient elements in the renovation’s design:
Recycling 95% of construction waste was recycled during the renovation of the building, which equals 635 tons of waste diverted from a landfill.
Solar Panels - A 12-kilowatt photovoltaic system provides 8 to 10% of the building’s normal electric load. Generating solar electricity on-site reduces energy costs and lowers the building’s carbon emissions.
Energy-Efficient Lighting and HVAC Systems reduces energy use in the building 35 to 45% beyond normal building code requirements.
The Energy Star-Rated Roof is white to reduce heat absorption. The white roof keeps the building cool in the summer, reducing the energy used for cooling.
Radiant Heating in the shop area provides efficient heating of a large open space and automatically turns off when the garage doors are open.
Recycled Testing Water – The water used to test water meters is recycled, reducing water use by 50%.
Solar Hot Water System provides 100% of the energy needed to heat water in the building for half of the year.
Light Sensors automatically dim the interior lights base on the amount of natural light available.
The new LEED Certified meter shop provides a healthier work environment for Water Bureau employees. Strategically placed operable windows and skylights improve ventilation and allow daylight to shine into the workspace. Building materials with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were used for occupant health and safety. A heavy-duty air filter removes pollution, viruses, bacteria, pollen, mold, and dust from the indoor environment. Bike parking and a locker room with showers are available for bicycle commuters.
This project was a first step in what will be a series of improvements to facilities at the Water Bureau’s Interstate Facility, which is more than 60 years old and has fallen into disrepair.
Yesterday marked the first day of Fall, and with it, the official end of summer. Most Portlanders might be wondering though, if summer ever really arrived. Remember June? It was one of the wettest on record. At the beginning of July, the sun finally made an appearance, and we logged a week with 11,496 kilowatt hours generated from the Water Bureau's solar array.We were dizzy and blinded by the sweet summer light.
Oh, the innocence! When we thought we would be treated to one of our beautiful Portland summers. As it turned out, that early July week was the highest power generation we'd see all summer. Thanks to the marine layer that clouded us in nearly every morning for the rest of July and most of August, solar generation dipped below 10,000 kwh/week during the week of August 7-13 and never quite made it back up:
Now it's officially fall, and at last the weather matches the season! Last week, from September 11-17, the solar array generated 5,997 kwh. The great news is that 5,997 kwh is still enough to power 26 households for one week! Every bit of solar power generated helps to offset the cost of using electricity.
Last week the Water Bureau's solar array generated a whopping 11069.75 kilowatt hours of electricity, almost a 50% increase from the previous week! That is enough energy to power 48 households for seven days.
So far in 2010, the array has generated 133,525 kWh of electricity, which will help offset the electricity needed to power the City's groundwater system during these hot summer months.
Random energy comparison: the electricity generated by the solar array last week would power a coffee maker around the clock for 16 days.
Posted by: TB
From June 13th-20th, the Portland Water Bureau's solar array generated 7,399 kilowatt hours of electricity. The average household uses about 230 kilowatt hours of energy per week, meaning the solar array generated enough energy to power 32 households for a whole week.
Although it has been a very wet month so far, today is the first day of summer! And hopefully the start of summer will bring some sunshine to us Portlanders, and even more solar energy!
For the week of May 15-21, the Portland Water Bureau's solar array generated 7,458 kilowatt hours of electricity, enough to power nearly 32 average households for the same time period.
So far in 2010, the array has generated 102,980 kWh of electricity, which will help offset the electricity needed to power the City's groundwater system during the hot summer months.
Thanks to a sunny second week of May, the Water Bureau's groundwater solar facility has again smashed its previous one-day and week-long records for solar generation.
For the week, the facility generated 10,386 kilowatt hours of electricity, which is enough to power 44 households for a week, or 11 households for an entire month!
Three days this week broke the previous one-day record of 1,725 kWh, set on April 15, 2010. May 8 and May 14 both broke that record by generating 1,798 kWh, but Thursday, May 13, took the one-day crown with 1,852 kWh generated. The high temperature on Thursday was 74 degrees.
Stay tuned for more record breaking news as the summer approaches!
April brought us rain almost every single day of the month, but that didn't stop it from also bringing us enough sun to establish a new monthly record for power generation at the Water Bureau's groundwater solar facility.
For the month, the facility generated 29,185 kilowatt hours of electricity (972 kWh/day), an increase of almost 6,000 kWh over the mark of 23,413 kWh (755 kWh/day) established in the month of March.
For the first four months of 2010, the facility has generated 75,759 kilowatt hours of electricity that will help offset the large amounts of electricity that may be needed this summer if the Water Bureau needs to supplement the region's water supply with its groundwater system.
As many will remember, the Portland Water Bureau issued a boil water notice over the 2009 Thanksgiving weekend that was the result of a positive hit on a routine test for E coli in the Washington Park reservoir. State law dictates that a second test follow the initial hit, and if that test is positive, a boil water notice is issued for affected customers. In that case, the follow up test came up positive, and the boil water notice was issued. Since that incident was the first boil water notice of its scale for the Water Bureau, much was learned in the process, and a number of changes to the Bureau's process were made.
One major change that occurred in the aftermath of that event was a new protocol which requires that the Water Bureau immediately shut down the affected reservior after any positive sample for E coli. Although this has impacts on the hydraulics of the system and challenges our water operations folks, it confines any potential issue within the affected reservoir and takes the potentially affected water out of service, thereby minimizing any potential risks.
On Tuesday, Water Bureau sampling of Reservoir 1 at Mt. Tabor came back positive for E coli, and 23 minutes later, Reservoir 1 was taken off line as a precaution while the State mandated follow-up samples were tested. Fortunately, the follow up samples came back negative, so no boil water notice was necessary. Reservoir 1 will be drained and cleaned, and brought back into service ASAP.
Although the positive sample for E coli was not routine, it has occurred 16 times in the open reservoirs since the bureau began testing for it in the 1990s, and our experience last November caused us to be much more aggressive in minimizing any potential risks. Most of the time, as in this case, positive hits are anomalies that are not confirmed by follow up tests.
This experience is an excellent illustration of the Water Bureau's vigilance in making sure Portland's water is clean and constant, and their performance in this circumstance was outstanding.
Posted by: TK
If you've followed our blog, you are aware that the Water Bureau operates the Northwest's largest solar array, but unless you caught this post, you may be unaware that the Water Bureau generates hydroelectric power in the Bull Run as well as elsewhere in the system. The hydroelectric power generation is overseen by a subsidiary of the Water Bureau known as the Bureau of Hydroelectric Power, which Commissioner Leonard refers to as "The best dam bureau in the City!"
Since they began operation in 1982, the City's hydroelectric dams have generated an average of 84,404,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each year that is purchased by PGE and distributed into the region's power grid. 84,404,000 kWh is enough electricity to support 7,514 average homes each year! Since 1982, the system has generated more than 2.3 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, reducing the need for coal and other fossil fuel electricity generation.
Below is a graphic illustration of the relationship between average annual rainfall and average annual power generation in the Bull Run from 1984 through 2009. As you can see, there is a definite correlation between rainfall and power generation, but that does not tell the whole story.
Here are the annual statistics for power generation and rainfall for each year from 2000 through 2009:
2000 77,791,000 kWh (92% of avg.) Rainfall: 65.4 inches (85% of avg)
2001 73,408,000 kWh (87% of avg) Rainfall: 72.5 inches (94% of avg)
2002 74,997,000 kWh (89% of avg) Rainfall: 60.8 inches (79% of avg)
2003 86,944,000 kWh (103% of avg) Rainfall: 81.8 inches (106% of avg)
2004 81,688,000 kWh (96% of avg) Rainfall: 70.9 inches (92% of avg)
2005 66,877,000 kWh (79% of avg) Rainfall: 72.6 inches (94% of avg)
2006 87,780,000 kWh (104% of avg) Rainfall: 84.7 inches (110% of avg)
2007 74,806,000 kWh (88% of avg) Rainfall: 75.7 inches (98% of avg)
2008 103,020,000 kWh (122% of avg) Rainfall: 77.9 inches (101% of avg)
2009 91,599,000 kWh (108% of avg) Rainfall: 72.7 inches (94% of avg)
Although there is an obvious correlation between total annual rainfall and total power generation over time, a closer look at the data suggests that there is more to consider than simply rainfall. For example, in 2003, the rainfall that year was 106% of average, yet the electricity generated was nearly 20,000,000 kWh less than the electricity generated in 2008, which had a rainfall total that was only 101% of average.
The reason for examples like this is that in addition to the amount of rainfall in a given year, another important factor in how much electricity is produced is how the rainfall is delivered --that is, does it come as a constant, slow drizzle over the whole year, or does it come in heavy, intense bursts , or even as snow? This is important because the electricity is a product of the pressure and volume of water coming through the turbine, and when there are sudden increases in volume from heavy rain events, more power is generated. Melting snowpack is another contributor to higher electricity generation because it tends to melt throughout the spring, and combined with steady rain can generate very significant volumes of water coming through the system.
In 2008 when Portland got 15 inches of snow in town, the Bull Run watershed was accumulating a record amount of snowpack, which resulted in a record year for electricity generated by our hydroelectric dams. This is the main reason for similar amounts of rainfall resulting in marked differences in generation in 2008 vs. 2003.
Like the Water Bureau has done with the online tracking and monitoring of its 267 kW solar array, the Bureau of Hydroelectric power is exploring options to monitor the electricity generation of the City's dams in realtime, which will be available to the public when they are successful.
For a complete discussion of the generation trends, click here. For general information, visit the Bureau of Hydroelectric Power's website.
Posted by: TK