Mobile Area Water & Sewer System (MAWSS) provides water and sewer service to residents and businesses across Mobile County, Alabama. MAWSS’s mission is to protect and enhance the health, safety, and economic well being of the community through responsible management of water resources, while providing superior customer service.

To support that mission, MAWSS operates 223 electric accounts across its facilities, powering the equipment and systems that keep water and sewer service running for the county. With every team member at MAWSS already stretched thin, no one had the time to dedicate to the kind of in-depth audit needed, even though the savings potential was worth pursuing.

At a trade event, a MAWSS representative learned about Utility Management Services (UMS) and the opportunity to audit those 223 electric accounts. Since identifying cost savings aligned directly with MAWSS’s mission, she connected UMS with the finance team. A few weeks later, Ron Hoffman of UMS met with Van Shepard (Director of Finance) and Daryl Russell (Director of Planning and Market Development) to walk through the contingency-based audit: no upfront cost and no internal resources required.

Van and Daryl asked detailed questions to confirm it would work for MAWSS, and learned that all UMS needed was a one-page Service Agreement, power provider LOAs, and a copy of one month’s electric bill, UMS would handle the rest. After discussing the opportunity with leadership, MAWSS moved forward with the audit.

UMS pulled 36 months of hourly interval data from MAWSS’s power provider, reconstructed past bills, and identified both refund and ongoing savings opportunities. Within a few weeks, UMS reported over $140,000 in annual savings and implemented the corrections directly with the provider, savings that complemented other energy initiatives already underway at MAWSS.