Binary Linear Programming as a Tool of Cost Optimization for a Water Supply Operator

Przemysław Kowalik and Magdalena Rzemieniak
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Przemysław Kowalik: Department of Quantitative Methods in Management, Faculty of Management, Lublin University of Technology, 20-618 Lublin, Poland
Magdalena Rzemieniak: Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management, Lublin University of Technology, 20-618 Lublin, Poland

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: The problem of scheduling pumps is widely discussed in the literature in the context of improving energy efficiency, production costs, emissions, and reliability. In some studies, the authors analyze the available case studies and compare the results; others present their own computational methods. In the paper, a problem of pump scheduling in regular everyday operations of a water supply operator is considered. The issues of water production optimization and energy savings are part of the topic of sustainable development. The objective of the article is the minimization of the cost of electric power used by the pumps supplying water. It is achieved thanks to the variability of both the demand for water and the price of electric power during the day combined with the possibility of storing water. The formulation of an existing electric power cost optimization problem as a binary linear programming problem was improved. An essential extension of the above mathematical model, which enables more flexible management of the pump system, was also proposed. An example containing real-world input data was successfully solved using Microsoft Excel with a free OpenSolver add-in.

Keywords: water supplying; cost minimization; binary linear programming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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