Executive Summary

This report documents the methodology and results of a water conservation potential study conducted under the direction of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) in conjunction with its 28 wholesale customers. The results of this study include the identification of three potential conservation programs for each wholesale customer that represent a reasonable range of conservation potential. The wholesale customers concurred in writing that they reviewed the estimated water savings resulting from the conservation analysis and, to the best of their knowledge, considered the water savings estimate to reflect a reasonable range of potential water conservation savings for long-range planning purposes.

BAWSCA had an active role throughout this project in coordinating the efforts of the wholesale customers with the SFPUC and its consultant team to ensure overall project integrity. The study used an end-use demand model called the Demand Side Management Least-Cost Planning Decision Support System (DSS) model (Maddaus 2003) to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of 32 water conservation measures for each of the SFPUC’s wholesale customers. The DSS model was also used to project total water demand to 2030 for the SFPUC wholesale customer service area as documented in a technical report SFPUC Wholesale Customer Water Demand Projections (URS 2004). The demand projections study established base-year (2001) conditions and wholesale customer service area demographics that were used as a baseline for this study. The DSS model prepared for each individual wholesale customer for the demand projections study was used to evaluate water conservation potential as described in this technical report.

Retail and wholesale demand and conservation studies were conducted in an effort to comprehensively assess future demand on the SFPUC regional water system. The SFPUC is currently implementing a capital improvement program (CIP) to improve the reliability of the SFPUC system and reduce its risk of failure. The CIP includes several projects to repair and replace existing transmission and storage facilities in the regional water system. These facilities are critical to providing a reliable water supply to the SFPUC’s retail and wholesale customer service areas. Understanding the future demands on the regional water system is an important aspect of improving the system’s reliability.