Optimal planning for the Gold Coast potable water distribution system
Annual Conference
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Gold Coast Water is continually reviewing and updating the master planning strategy for the Gold Coast water distribution system. The aim is to identify the best combination of new infrastructure to satisfy both the rapidly increasing demands on the system for the local area, while supporting the new infrastructure being proposed as part of the wider South East Queensland water grid.
As part of this review process Gold Coast Water maintains a Priority Infrastructure Plan (PIP). This medium to long-term infrastructure development plan is developed in-house by Gold Coast Water modellers using traditional design approaches.
In recognizing the difficulty of using traditional design methods to develop a minimum cost PIP, Gold Coast Water and Optimatics undertook a Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimisation study of the PIP.
This paper discusses the process undertaken in applying a formal optimisation framework to significantly improve both performance and cost of the Gold Coast Water PIP. A comparison of results is made with the original PIP demonstrating the effectiveness of the methodology and technology applied.