The city of Aspen’s water treatment plant is purchasing solar panels and taking other steps officials hope will lead to the plant’s being run completely on renewable energy within five years.

At the May 27 City Council meeting, the council approved a $150,000 contract for the purchase of solar panels for the water plant that are expected to generate 20.74 kilowatt hours of electricity per month. The solar panels are part of a larger effort, which has as its center the voter-approved hydroelectric plant on Castle Creek, to reduce reliance on fossil fuels at the water plant .

The plant’s current total energy usage is approximately 99 kilowatt hours per month, city utilities engineer John Hines said. Hines said that while efficiency upgrades have reduced that number from 125 kWh in 2004, the goal is to reduce the total energy load at the plant to 75 kWh.

From the massive water pumps to the filtration systems, “we have a lot of motors,” Hines said. Many of the gains since 2004 have come as the plant has replaced some of the 1970s-era motors with more modern motors that are 25 percent more efficient.

Also under way at the water plant, located near the hospital at 500 Doolittle Dr., are plans for a heat exchange system that would take advantage of the large pools of water beneath the plant buildings. Similar to a geothermal heating and cooling system, the heat exchange system would tap the 55-degree temperature of the pools to cool the buildings. In the winter, the heating system would warm the 55-degree air from the water pools, rather than the colder air outside. 

Hines noted that once the hydroelectric facility on Castle Creek, which is still in the planning process, is built, the water plant could see its reliance on fossil fuels drop to zero.

The city also hopes to add hydrogen power to its energy portfolio one day, Hines said. While the development of hydrogen as a power source is still in its early phases, the technology is starting to come around, exemplified in a new facility in Boulder that extracts hydrogen from natural gas. Hydrogen is attractive as an energy source because it burns cleanly and has high energy yields. Drivers of hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered cars have enough energy left over to run household appliances off their fuel cells when they arrive home in the evening, Hines said.

Most hydrogen technology available today is extremely expensive and is still reliant on natural gas — or other hydrocarbons — as a source of the hydrogen. But technology is being developed that would allow hydrogen molecules to be extracted from water, which Hines envisions Aspen achieving someday.

The city hopes to put all of this renewable — or “non-consumptive” — energy on display at the control station’s new hydropower facility, which will be built under the Castle Creek Bridge. School groups and the general public would be invited to see the renewable power generated through water, solar, geothermal and possibly hydrogen collected and distributed.

Hines said children would be the most important audience for such a display.

“If we can educate the young children to think that way now, they won’t even consider burning fossil fuels in future,” Hines said.

curtis@aspendailynews.com