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Smart Scheduling of Pump Control in Wastewater Networks Based on Electricity Spot Market Prices

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Abstract

Pumping stations in a wastewater network use predetermined high and low sump elevations to manage overflow and spills of the system, but the operation protocol, generally, does not consider energy costs related to pumps. For wastewater pumping, the largest segment of the operating cost is spent on electricity charges. Therefore, management of electricity use in wastewater operations is crucial. The purpose of this study is to develop a tool to assist asset operators to reduce electricity costs by improving and optimizing the pump control switching. With the consideration of the wholesale electricity prices from the spot market, there is an opportunity to improve efficiency and save costs by intelligent and smart scheduling control. A novel concept of utilizing the existing wastewater network hydraulic model to simulate the operations of the pump controller was undertaken. The sump elevation/wet well level and electricity spot prices were used as the two inputs of the smart controller to operate the pumps. Simulated results show that this smart controller could be a practical solution in terms of energy optimization and cost reduction to improve conventional pump switching models with up to 13% savings across the entire network under different dry and wet weather flow conditions.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of South Australian Water Corporation (SA Water) staff, Steve McMichael, Flavio Bressan, Harry Jin, Stephen Bologiannis, and Matthew Konetschka.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scarce Resources and Circular Economy (ScaRCE), UniSA STEM, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA, 5095, Australia

    Phuong Do, Nima Gorjian, Faisal Ahammed, Raufdeen Rameezdeen & Christopher W. K. Chow

  2. School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Neda Gorjian Jolfaei & Bo Jin

  3. South Australian Water Corporation, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Neda Gorjian Jolfaei, Nima Gorjian & Leon van der Linden

  4. Future Industries Institute, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, 5095, Australia

    Christopher W. K. Chow

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  1. Phuong Do
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Correspondence to Christopher W. K. Chow.

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Do, P., Jolfaei, N.G., Gorjian, N. et al. Smart Scheduling of Pump Control in Wastewater Networks Based on Electricity Spot Market Prices. Water Conserv Sci Eng 6, 79–94 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41101-021-00104-1

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