Abstract:
Excess pressure within water distribution systems not only increases the risk for water losses
through leakages but provides the potential for harnessing excess energy through the installation of
energy recovery devices, such as turbines or pump-as-turbines. The e ect of pressure management on
leakage reduction in a system has been well documented, and the potential for pressure management
through energy recovery devices has seen a growth in popularity over the past decade. Over the
past 2 years, the e ect of energy recovery on leakage reduction has started to enter the conversation.
With the theoretical potential known, researchers have started to focus on the location of energy
recovery devices within water supply and distribution systems and the optimization thereof in terms of
specific installation objectives. Due to the instrumental role that both the operating pressure and flow
rate plays on both leakage and potential energy, daily variation and fluctuations of these parameters
have great influence on the potential energy recovery and subsequent leakage reduction within a water
distribution system. This paper presents an enhanced optimization procedure, which incorporates
user-defined weighted importance of specific objectives and extended-period simulations into a
genetic algorithm, to identify the optimum size and location of potential installations for energy
recovery and leakage reduction. The proposed procedure proved to be e ective in identifying more
cost-e ective and realistic solutions when compared to the procedure proposed in the literature.
