Pacific Gas & Electric Company – Patrick Liao – 2014

Goals

Patrick Liao worked with Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s agricultural energy efficiency program to develop a pilot program targeting optimization of water- and energy-intensive irrigation systems.

Solutions

Liao focused his project on approaches for enhanced maintenance, which offers a largely underutilized means of increasing energy efficiency without completely replacing existing equipment. In order to assess the market potential for such an initiative, Liao gathered detailed data on water and energy use in PG&E’s service territory. As a second step in the process, Liao interviewed key stakeholders in the industry such as program managers, engineers, consultants and other industry experts. This outreach revealed methodologies and technologies to improve system performance as well as insight into barriers to this type of work. Finally, Liao reviewed optimization projects previously incented through utility programs and utilized third party calculation tools to quantify expected savings from typical projects, in order to develop an internal business case for PG&E to use in evaluating program next steps.

Potential Impact

Liao’s analysis, which informed estimates of crop acreage, sprinkler systems and water sources, could help PG&E target programs to its 35,000 agricultural customers and develop new irrigation optimization programs.