Optimisation Of The Number Of Operating Well Pumps Based On Power Consumption

To address the water shortage issue, Libya has carried out one of the largest civil engineering projects in the world, the Great Man-Made River Project, which delivers groundwater from southern desert well-fields to densely populated northern regions. Such complex water supply systems require continuous monitoring and optimization. This study focuses on a specific sub-system developed during Phase II of the project and aims to minimize electrical power consumption by applying linear programming. Two system configurations were analyzed. In the first, the system was modeled as a single system with one constraint, while in the second, it was divided into two sub-systems with separate constraints. In both cases, the objective function remained the minimization of electrical power consumption subject to required water demand. The results show that both configurations achieve significant improvements, resulting in approximately 1.7 MW (≈3%) reduction in electrical power consumption and up to 20 pumps available in stand-by mode. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of linear programming as a practical and efficient decision-support tool for optimizing large-scale water supply systems and provide a foundation for future development of real-time control strategies.