Water Distribution System Optimization Considering Behind-the-Meter Solar Energy with a Hydraulic Power-Based Search-Space Reduction Method
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 149, Issue 9
Abstract
To meet increasing energy demands, reduce environmental impacts, and increase economic benefits, many water utilities have installed on-site renewable energy generation and storage facilities. These are commonly referred to as behind-the-meter (BTM) energy systems. This paper proposes a systematic optimization approach to the design and evaluation of water distribution systems (WDS) with BTM solar energy. The trade-offs between economic and environmental costs and the benefits these systems can have throughout their design life are demonstrated using a real-world pressurized irrigation system. Due to the large number of decision variables required during the optimization process and the associated high-computational cost, a hydraulic-power-based search-space reduction method has been developed. This method identifies common features of the pipes across a network based on the potential maximum flow and residual pressure head at the outlet of each pipe, so that pipes having similar hydraulic power capacity and thus similar diameters can be grouped together as a single decision variable. This effectively reduces the search space size and significantly increases the optimization efficiency for complex WDS optimization problems such as the optimal pipe design of WDS incorporating BTM solar energy in this study. In this paper, trade-offs between two objective function values [the total life-cycle cost and total life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions] are investigated. A reduction in GHG emissions leads to an increase in the total cost and vice versa. It has also been found that the incorporation of BTM solar energy can significantly improve both objective function values. However, the optimal diameters of pipes and therefore the capital costs and GHG emissions are not sensitive to the increase in solar photovoltaic sizes.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are proprietary or confidential in nature and may only be provided with restrictions (e.g., anonymized data). Input data, the hydraulic model, and Python codes can be requested from the corresponding author subject to Lower Murray Water approval.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Lower Murray Water for supplying data for this paper. Wenyan Wu also acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council via the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE210100117).
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Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 149 • Issue 9 • September 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 1, 2022
Accepted: Apr 16, 2023
Published online: Jul 11, 2023
Published in print: Sep 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Dec 11, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Benefit cost ratios
- Business management
- Electric power
- Energy engineering
- Energy sources (by type)
- Financial management
- Hydro power
- Infrastructure
- Pipe sizes
- Pipeline systems
- Pipes
- Power transmission
- Practice and Profession
- Pressure pipes
- Renewable energy
- Solar power
- Water and water resources
- Water management
- Water storage
- Water supply
- Water supply systems
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