PROCEDURES AND SOLUTIONS FOR ENERGETICAL OPTIMIZATION OF WATER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS

Water distribution to users by pumping is a process which consumes preponderantly electrical energy. It is estimated that in order to provide the service pressure, usual networks supplied exclusively by exterior pumping stations require an energy consumption of 60...70 % of the energy consumed by operation of the whole centralized supply system of large urban centres. This fact generates a great increase of the national energetic system load, during average consumption hours and especially in peak consumption hours. The present world's energy's situation rises the reconsideration of the structure and functioning principles of water distribution systems from the point of view of energetical optimization as a major, necessary and opportune problem, which can be solved by a new structural design. Thus, the objective of this paper is to analyze some procedures and solutions for functional and energetic optimization of distribution systems by separation of water networks by pressure zones. The energetic and economic efficiency of zoning procedures is estimated and numerical examples are presented for studied solutions.