title
AN ORDINANCE relating to the sale of heat energy transferred to or from the King County wastewater treatment system and authorizing the King County executive to enter into up to three agreements for such sewage heat recovery projects.
body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. Wastewater contains heat energy as it flows through pipelines to the treatment plant, and can be both a source of heat for buildings and a sink for unwanted heat from buildings.
2. Warm and hot wastewater flushed from homes and businesses is a significant source of energy. One estimate is that Americans flush three hundred fifty billion kilowatt-hours of energy into the sewers each year, roughly enough to power thirty million U.S. homes.
3. Recovery of heat energy from wastewater is consistent with the wastewater treatment division's mission to recover resources from wastewater.
4. Use of this renewable heat energy reduces use of fossil fuels for heating and cooling, contributing to efforts to reduce the region's carbon footprint, consistent with King County's Strategic Climate Action Plan, and supports countywide greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets adopted as Countywide Planning Policies by the King County Growth Management Planning Council in 2014.
5. Sewer heat transfer is an established technology in other countries, including Canada, and is a developing market in the United States with interest from private property owners in King County as a potential solution for delivering cost-efficient, environmentally responsible heating and cooling in buildings.
6. Sale of this previously unused heat energy resource provides an opportunity to generate modest but new funding, which can be used to further carbon emission reduction projects within the wastewater treatment division.
7. The unique nature and complexity of determining if, when and where a sewer heat transfer might be a useable energy option for a given user demonstrates that sewer heat does not lend itself to a sale to the high...

Click here for full text