Evaluation of methods for reducing the total cost in rural water pumping stations in Iran: a case study

With regard to increasing energy costs, the issue of reducing energy consumption can be vital and essential. Pumping systems are one of the most widely used energy consuming systems in the water supply network. This work studies the optimization of Goharbaran pump station in Sari (Iran) with the purpose of achieving some extendable effective strategies which can be applied to the other ABFAR pump stations. After the field study, identifying the existing systems, and considering different methods of optimization, three methods have been analyzed and discussed in detail, i.e. using variable speed drives, selection of an appropriate pump arrangement, and load transfer from peak hours. The results show that determination of the exact operating point of the characteristic pump curves and considering the specific energy consumption index in the pump selection can significantly decrease the energy consumption. Also, it is found that utilizing appropriate planning for telemetry can lead to an adequate reduction in the consumption costs. Pilot pump station (the pump station chosen for investigation) results indicate that combining the two approaches of load transmission and selection of an appropriate pump can lead to a decrease in the operation cost of up to 36%, and also a considerable reduction (17.8%) in the energy consumption.