Optimized Operation of Serial Pump Stations of the Shiraz Water Delivery System, Using the Genetic Algorithm

Population growth and shortage of energy warrant optimal utilization of our limited resources. Pumping stations typically run on electrical energy and economical use of the energy is desirable. Serial pumping stations are often required when the pipeline is long, or when the designed pumping head is too large to be handled by the existing single pumps. The greatest energy price reduction can be obtained by careful scheduling of pumping operation. Here, a pump operation schedule is represented as a string of binary values with each bit representing pump on/off status during a particular time interval, and pump optimal scheduling problem is coded as a problem of finding the best binary string, which results in the least energy price. In this study, a GA (genetic algorithms) based simulation-optimization model has been developed for the optimal scheduling of serial pumping stations. The model integrates GA optimizer and EPANET 2 hydraulic network solver in MATLAB. The proposed model is applied to find the optimal pump operation schedule of the Shiraz water conveyance system from the Doroudzan Reservoir in an ordinary day of the year. The results showed that the total energy cost in the optimal operation was 29% less than average in an ordinary day. Comparison between the optimal operation program and the previous studies indicated the model’s robustness.