Exploring Optimal Pump Scheduling in Water Distribution Networks with Branch and Bound Methods

Ruben Menke, Edo Abraham, Panos Parpas and Ivan Stoianov ()
Additional contact information
Ruben Menke: Imperial College London
Edo Abraham: TU Delft
Panos Parpas: Imperial College London
Ivan Stoianov: Imperial College London

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2016, vol. 30, issue 14, No 23, 5333-5349

Abstract: Abstract Water utilities can achieve significant savings in operating costs by optimising pump scheduling to improve efficiency and shift electricity consumption to low-tariff periods. Due to the complexity of the optimal scheduling problem, heuristic methods that cannot guarantee global optimality are often applied. This paper investigates formulations of the pump scheduling problem solved using a branch and bound method. Piecewise linear component approximations outperform non-linear approximations within application driven accuracy bounds and demand uncertainties. It is shown that the reduction of symmetry through the grouping of pumps significantly reduces the computational effort, whereas loops in the network have the opposite effect. The computational effort of including convex, non-linear pump operating, and maintenance cost functions is investigated. Using case studies, it is shown that linear and fixed-cost functions can be used to find schedules which, when simulated in a full hydraulic simulation, have performances that are within the solver optimality gap and the uncertainty of demand forecasts.

Keywords: Water distribution systems; Pump scheduling; Mixed integer programming; Branch and bound; Looped network models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-016-1490-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:waterr:v:30:y:2016:i:14:d:10.1007_s11269-016-1490-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-016-1490-8

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().