Performance evaluation of real time control in urban wastewater systems in practice: Review and perspective

Abstract

, +31 6 5090 9369 Highlights − In literature no consensus on evaluation of RTC in urban wastewater systems exist − Main deficiencies are lack of uncertainty analysis and too short evaluation periods − A methodology is proposed for the performance evaluation of RTC in practice − (Dis)advantages of a data or model driven evaluation are discussed − The need for uncertainty analysis and a proper evaluation period is demonstrated

A Methodology for the Design of RTC Strategies for Combined Sewer Networks

“…Using only existing control locations (E) such as PS or existing sluice gates. In the literature, this is frequently the case for studies investigating the control of PS [30,[39][40][41][42] and other existing control locations, such as sluice gates [20]. In practical implementation, this might require the installation of new actuators, as existing gates might not be configured to handle frequent control actions.…”

“…The results obtained from the sensitivity analysis are also used to evaluate the effectiveness of the applied RTC scenarios with regard to the reduction of total CSO volume and flooding compared to result variability of the uncontrolled scenario due to parameter uncertainty. To this end, additional scenarios have been evaluated for the uncontrolled scenario varying parameters not related to RTC within their uncertainty boundaries, as proposed by [30]. The selection of these model parameters and the chosen ranges listed in Table 4 are based on available literature [55].…”

“…As the performance of RTC scenarios is considered to be strongly dependent on the rain data [30], all scenarios with the parameterization leading to the best results for the short rainfall series were re-run using the full 13-year rainfall series in order to gain some insight in the actual CSO volume reduction and flooding behavior. For the MPC scenarios, perfect rainfall data prediction was assumed in order to consider the full theoretical potential of MPC.…”

“…Interestingly, the identification of a higher number of control locations using the volume-based approach still leads to slightly higher average volume per control location when compared to both existing and flow-based locations (Figure 3b). This indicates a higher efficiency of the volume-based approach, while it appears that existing and flow-based choice of locations is predominant in literature (e.g., [4,24,30,[39][40][41][42][43]45,46]), where the choice of control locations does not form an explicit research topic. It also means that general conclusions about the RTC potential based on the number of control locations alone should be refrained from: the positioning of the individual control locations within the network and with respect to each other is of high relevance.…”

“…Compared to the range of results, even when using sensible default values for parameters rather than optimizing for each individual case, here leads to good results for Arendonk, Beerse, Geel and Wolfsdonk. Such default parameterization could thus form at least a sensible starting point for further analyses, as e.g., the suggested use for uncertainty analysis [30]. This, in turn, also means that control algorithms that perform worse than expected in their default parameterization (e.g., Arendonk V pos EQ glo) show very limited potential for improvement by modifying their (limited amount of) parameters.…”