The life quality of the world’s population and its development activities mainly depend on the availability, quantity and quality of fresh water. Water scarcity at many regions around the globe present challenges towards improving efficiency and rationalizing its use. The state of Baja California, México, is located at the northwestern corner of Mexico at a large semiarid region where rain incidence is very low (169 mm annually); thus, its water provision is also scarce. Federal and state governments have made efforts to guarantee water accessibility to its municipalities. The Río Colorado-Tijuana Aqueduct (ARCT) is a large water supply system that provides 5.33 m3/s of water to these cities. Its 6 pumping stations elevate the water 1,061 m through 147 km of pipes, canals and tunnels, and its total installed motor capacity is of 106,000 HP.
Pumps are high energy consumers and represent a large fraction of operating costs in water supply systems. The volume pumped by the ARCT in 2010 was of 80.7 million of m3, while consuming 322.7 GWh annually at a cost of 23.8 million dollars. Implementing actions for the saving and efficient use of energy in hydraulic facilities is a worldwide priority to achieve rational water management and therefore national and regional sustainable development. Methodologies that improve energy savings while satisfying system performance criteria should be sought for better performance and management of the water supply systems.
For building energy scenarios for such systems, it is necessary to integrate and adapt different methodologies for the simulation and assessment of behavior and performance taking in account hydraulic, electric and economic issues. This paper presents different approaches and results when these methodologies are applied for the case of ARCT.
A satellite-based investigation into the algae bloom variability in large water supply urban reservoirs during COVID-19 lockdown
