Economic MPC for the management of drinking water networks

This paper addresses the management of drinking water networks (DWNs) regarding a multi-objective cost function by means of economically-oriented model predictive control (EMPC) strategies. Specifically, assuming the water demand and the energy price as periodically time-varying signals, this paper shows that the EMPC framework is flexible to enhance the control of DWNs without relying on hierarchical control schemes that require the use of real-time optimisers (RTO) or steady-state target optimisers (SSTO) in an upper layer. Four different MPC strategies are discussed in this paper: a hierarchical two-layer approach, a standard EMPC where the multi-objective cost function is optimised directly, and two different modifications of the latter, which are meant to overcome possible feasibility losses in the presence of changing operating patterns. The discussed schemes are tested and compared by means of a case study taken from a part of the Barcelona DWN.