(86b) Process Stream Routing and Multi-Plant Operation of Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facilities

The authors have developed operating strategies for energy cost minimization and effluent regulation of an interconnected system of advanced wastewater treatment plants in Hillsborough County, FL. Inner-loop optimization has been performed on individual plant-wide transient operation of energy-intensive processes, while outer-loop optimization has been designed for influent and process stream manipulation and transmission between sites via plant-to-plant interconnects, transfer pumps, and lift stations. Forecasting models have been generated using artificial neural networks for inter-plant operability, and rules have been generated for supervisory decision making.