Industrial and commercial buildings consume millions of gallons of water each year for cooling. In the hot, dry climate of the Colorado River Basin, cooling is a critical aspect of day-to-day operations. To conserve energy, companies rely on evaporation to cool buildings by transferring indoor heat to the outside air. This process, known as wet-cooling, underpins commerce across the region. Wet-cooling systems, while essential, consume significant amounts of water. Simple upgrades can boost water efficiency by 20-30%, but these cost-effective retrofits are rarely adopted due to high up-front costs. Consequently, many sites overuse water. Supporting projects to retrofit these facilities with water-saving technology provides a sustainable solution that conserves water, protects ecosystems, and boosts urban economies.  

Through the Cooling Water Conservation Fund, we provide technical assistance and financing for water-saving retrofits to industrial wet-cooling systems. This Fund advances capital for upgrades with little to no up-front cost, recovering funds from the site's water savings to reinvest in new projects.  

Benefits associated with project outcomes from this revolving Fund include:

• Verifiable, multi-year water conservation, with increasing impact as funds are recycled.  

• Reduced chemical and energy use for wet cooling systems.

• Advanced water conservation solutions for commercial industrial water users.  

• Advancing a unique municipal-nonprofit partnership to magnify the impacts of existing municipal water conservation programs and tackle one of the toughest problems for the management of municipal water demands.