Investigation of Energy Consumption in Agriculture Water Pumping Stations by Different Operation Methods (Case Study: Ashrafiyeh Agro-Industry Irrigation System)

Pressurized irrigation systems are one of the largest energy consumers and they are mainly dependent on the pumping stations. Therefore¡ optimum design of pumping stations is very important¡ especially¡ in view of increasing the efficiency of pumping stations and controlling energy consumption. In this study¡ variable speed pumps have been examined in Ashrafiyeh agro-industry with an area of 85 ha located in Qazvin province¡ Iran. Accordingly¡ the energy consumption during a ten-year period in the five operation scenarios of the pumping stations has been analyzed by MATLAB/SIMULINK software. Results of this study showed that consumed electrical energy by using variable speed pumps is approximately decreased up to about 18 percent as compared wth the fixed speed pumps. According to computational model¡ the average energy consumption to transfer 1 m3 water by variable speed pumps was 0.33 kWh. The results of evaluation of consumed energy showed that current operation circumstance increased the energy losses up to about 60 percent as compared with other operation methods. Furthermore¡ the initial cost of the variable speed pumps after nine years operation¡ on average¡ is dissipated from the saved energy.