Cordia Energy Process Water Reuse

An MWMO grant is funding the design of a water reuse system at Cordia Energy in downtown Minneapolis that will transform the wastewater produced by their district energy system into valuable irrigation.

Cordia Energy provides heating and cooling through a network of pipes that deliver steam and hot or chilled water to sites throughout downtown Minneapolis, including US Bank Stadium, the University of St Thomas, the IDS Center, and Target Center. This energy creation currently uses 100-150 million gallons of water annually, 20% of which is then discharged into the sanitary sewer. The proposed water reuse system that’s currently in its design phase would aim to capture up to 900,000 gallons of that wastewater annually, so that it could be used by the Mpls Downtown Improvement District (DID) to irrigate the trees and vegetation they maintain in the downtown core.

A feasibility study completed early in 2025 identified various scenarios for water capture. The current design phase focuses on the preferred scenario, which utilizes existing 5,000-gallon storage tanks to hold water for reuse. The design process is expected to be finalized early in 2026, at which point implementation could be explored.