MANTRA Time of Day Pumping (MANTRA TDP) minimizes power costs for pumping water into distribution networks and reservoirs while maintaining water level and water discharge pressure constraints.

MANTRA TDP (patent pending) optimizes and schedules pumping activity to minimize total utility cost while assuring adequate water supply for demand and safety requirements. Previous studies indicate that off-peak pumping reduces the power costs for water transmission and distribution by 25% to 60% over demand based pumping schedules.

Time of Day Pumping takes advantage of water storage capacity to schedule water supply pumping to time periods with the lowest power cost while smoothing water movement requirements to reduce peak power demand surcharges. MANTRA TDP monitors tank levels and usage rates on-line and optimizes pump schedules every 15-30 minutes. Sudden demand changes, such as a drawdown due to a fire, are quickly identified and new pumping schedules implemented to accommodate the new demand minimizing costs, while maintaining adequate pressures and safety requirements.

What differentiates MANTRA TDP from other pump schedulers is that MANTRA TDP is a dynamic optimizer which is simple to configure and flexible to address varying system configurations. TDP is a set of function blocks within our established MANTRA advanced process control system software. The solution is built using modular function blocks through an easy-to-use graphical configurator. Maintenance and modifications are easily implemented by the user.

MANTRA is applied as supervisory control over the existing SCADA or control system using our suite of standard interfaces. The complete library of control functions and logic are available to allow incorporating other advanced control solutions, such as chemical injection optimization, advanced alarming and system diagnostics. Faceplates, also selected from the built-in library, can be used standalone or embedded in the existing Human Machine Interface (HMI).

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MANTRA TDP Module Capabilities

• MANTRA TDP finds the lowest power cost solution within the specific network constraints.
• MANTRA TDP runs real-time interfacing with the existing SCADA or control system.
• MANTRA TDP projects daily water demand in gallons, and will use the projection to schedule pumping.
• MANTRA TDP allows user to manually set and tune daily water demand profile in gallons.
• MANTRA TDP monitors and displays water usage of previous 24 hours in gallons.
• MANTRA TDP handles an arbitrary number of utility cost rate segments.
• MANTRA TDP evaluates and displays the utility's costs and its past 12 months of historical data.
• MANTRA TDP evaluates and displays the actual savings for the past 12 months.
• MANTRA TDP can handle an arbitrary number of pumps with different power.
• MANTRA TDP can handle constant speed and variable speed pumps.
• MANTRA TDP allows manual or automatic operation of pumps.
• MANTRA TDP recognizes and compensates for local control or shutdown of pumps.
• MANTRA TDP allows user to configure the rotation scheme for selecting pumps.
• MANTRA TDP can handle any tank shape and size.
• MANTRA TDP allows user to configure minimum and maximum water level constraints.
• MANTRA TDP generates a rich set of configurable alarm signals for the tank and each pump.
• MANTRA TDP can monitor and display the working condition of each pump if appropriate sensors are installed in the system.
• MANTRA TDP issues diagnostic messages for the system.

Previous Studies

1. Dalrymple, Mary, "A Balance of Power", Endeavors, Fall 1997.
2. Merleno, David J., "Energy Management", Ohio Section AWWA, Spring 2000, pp. 35-39.
3. Naylor, Ronald G., "Off-Peak Pumping of Potable Water Reflects Substantial Savings", Illinois Municipal Review, March 1989, p. 18.