Optimization for Operational Regime of Water Pump System at Processing Plant
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Date
2021-05-21
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German Mongolian Institute for Resouce and Technology
Abstract
Water distribution systems have a significant energic impact on mineral processing due to the large amount of energy consumed in water pumping. Thus, the economical and efficient operation of the water pumping system is a crucial concern in mining companies. With the careful operation of the pump may lead to considerable energy savings and minimize mechanical wear. Therefore, the present research is aimed to optimize the pump operation policy of the circulating water pumping station at Erdenet Mining Corporation (EMC).
The circulating water pumping station is a vital facility at the EMC that is responsible for supplying about 84% of the processing water to the mineral processing plant. This facility consists of 5 main pumps which have high electric consumption. In addition, at EMC, three types of electricity tariffs are employed: daytime consumption, evening consumption, and night consumption. Each tariff zones have different prices for electricity utilization. So that, this study is intended to determine the optimal operational regimes for the pump system based on different tariff prices and other constraints.
In this research, the combination of pump scheduling and tank level approaches are introduced to improve the efficiency of a water supply system. Two MATLAB codes are developed to define the optimal pump operation policy.
The obtained results show that optimization of pump operation can minimize energy cost up to 30% compared to the actual operation. Although this value is only found based on theory, in practice, this value can severely decrease.