Reduce power utility costs in water distribution

ControlSoft releases new advanced control solution for reducing power utility costs in water distribution, by selecting the time of day for pumping water into distribution networks and reservoirs

ControlSoft announced the availability of the latest addition to their suite of advanced control solutions for the water treatment industry.

Mantra Time of Day Pumping (Mantra TDP) minimises power costs for pumping water into distribution networks and reservoirs.

Mantra TDP optimises and schedules pumping activity to minimise total utility cost while assuring adequate water supply for demand and safety requirements.

Previous studies indicate that Time of Day Pumping reduces the power costs for water transmission and distribution by 25% to 60% over demand based pumping schedules.

Time of Day Pumping takes advantage of water storage capacity to schedule water supply pumping to time periods with the lowest power cost, while smoothing water movement requirements to reduce peak power demand surcharges.

Mantra TDP monitors tank levels and usage rates on-line and optimises pump schedules every 15-30 minutes.

Sudden demand changes, such as a draw-down due to a fire, are quickly identified and new pumping schedules implemented to accommodate the new demand: minimising costs while maintaining adequate pressures and safety requirements.

"What differentiates Mantra TDP from other pump schedulers is that Mantra TDP is a dynamic optimiser which is simple to configure and flexible to address varying system configurations," said Alireza Haji-Valizadeh, Technology Development Manager and inventor (patent pending).

"TDP is layered on our established Mantra advanced process control system software.

The solution is built using modular function blocks through an easy-to-use graphical configurator.

Maintenance and modifications are easily implemented by the user".

The ControlSoft Mantra advanced process control system uses model predictive techniques to improve profitability and product quality.

Mantra is applied as supervisory control over the existing SCADA or control system using our suite of standard interfaces.

The complete library of control functions and logic are available to allow incorporating other advanced control solutions, such as chemical injection optimisation.

Faceplates, also selected from the built-in library, can be used standalone or embedded in the existing Human Machine Interface (HMI).

Key Features of Mantra TDP.

* Finds the lowest power cost solution within the specific network constraints.

* Builds a customized solution for your specific water distribution system using modular functional blocks: Definitions of network, storage, sources and complex demand forecasts are unlimited.

* Runs real-time and interfaces with SCADA or control system.

* Generates a rich set of configurable alarms for each tank and pump.

* Monitors and displays the working condition of each pump.

* Tracks history of daily water demand and forecasts the next daily demand.

* Recognizes and compensates for local control or shutdown of pumps.

* Handles an arbitrary number of utility cost rate segments and calculates power cost savings for last 12 months.

* Issues diagnostic messages for the system.

Back to top