Energy-efficient predictive control of centrifugal multi-pump stations

A novel head and pressure predictive control approach is offered for the centrifugal multi-pump stations equipped with variable speed drives and programmable logical controllers. The pre-defined tabularized data are used where the efficiency estimates for different number of pumps operated at various speeds are collected. Thanks to accounting the motor drive power losses, maximal system efficiency is obtained as the main outcome without equipment oversizing. The total head and pressure management strategy is proposed basing on both the analytical performance characteristics and the experimental efficiency distribution diagrams of a multi-pump station. Using this efficiency distribution, the efficiency map is proposed where the optimal numbers of pumps are recorded aiming to maintain the system performance in one of the best efficiency regions. An appropriate control algorithm is described. Finally, some experimental results validated the new control methodology are discussed.