A Hybrid Methodology Based on Smart Management Energy Consumption in Irrigation Systems

Abstract

Innovative practices in irrigation systems can bring improvements in terms of economic efficiency and, at the same time, can reduce environmental impacts. Investment in high-tech technologies frequently involves additional costs, but an efficient water management system can increase the lifetime of the equipment. The most utilized electronic device for a smart management, used to pump units from irrigation systems, is the frequency converter. This device can regulate the speed of the motors that control the pumps according to the consumption of water, ensuring that it does not pump more water than is needed. This paper develops a new operating algorithm that ensures the operation of the pumping group at safe operating intervals and identifies the equivalent pump operating points for the entire flow range and pumping height of the pumping group in order to bring smart management to irrigation systems. The parameters monitored and collected for each vertical pump refers to the voltage, current, frequency (speeds) and flow of each hydraulic operating mode. The methodology used is based on the principle of creating an expert system to optimize energy consumption in the pumping groups. The proposed methodology was tested on an irrigation system that includes a pumping group with five pumps, showing its effectiveness in obtaining the optimal solution with a relatively low computational burden and without the violation of any system constraints under any operating conditions.