Cost efficiency in water supply systems: An applied review on optimization models for the pump scheduling problem

Marlene Brás, Ana Moura and António Andrade-Campos

European Journal of Operational Research, 2025, vol. 323, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: The need for efficient pump operation in water supply systems (WSS) has become increasingly important over time, driven by the growing energy consumption and the associated energy costs. Forecasts for 2050 anticipate a global increase in water demand by 55%, indicating an increasing surge in WSS energy consumption. Control of pumping stations, which consume 70% of the energy in WSS, is the most critical area for optimization. This optimization challenge is commonly referred as the pump scheduling problem (PSP), and can be addressed using a variety of mathematical formulations. While numerous formulations exist to solve this optimization problem, the large majority of the studies are focus on the optimization techniques, sidelining the problem formulation. Due to the unique physical characteristics of each WSS, individual mathematical formulations may exhibit different levels of performance. In addition to general pumps’ operation optimization, the employment of variable speed pumps (VSP) can lead to significant energy savings compared to fixed speed pumps (FSP). However, despite their apparent benefits, many established optimization models for the PSP have not yet incorporated VSP decision variables into their formulations. Therefore, this work aims to review the main mathematical formulations for the pump scheduling problem for WSS with VSP and to present a quantitative comparative study of three mathematical formulations applied to a case study in the literature. The comparative analysis here presented revealed that the optimization model based on duty cycles is more cost-efficient when compared to alternative approaches discussed in the literature.

Keywords: Nonlinear programming; Linear programming; Water supply systems; Pump scheduling problem; Optimization models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037722172400599X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:323:y:2025:i:1:p:1-19

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2024.07.039

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati

More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().