Fuzzy Logic for Solving the Water-Energy Management Problem in Standalone Water Desalination Systems: Water-Energy Nexus and Fuzzy System Design

Abstract

This work investigates an important topic of energy and water security (water-energy nexus). For this purpose, Water-Energy Management Strategy (W-EMS) for a standalone water desalination system powered by PV-Wind source is designed. The proposed W-EMS is based on fuzzy logic. In this context, authors focus on the design phase of the Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) through which three design methods are described and analyzed. The influence of FIS design on W-EMS performance is highlighted. First, it is shown that based on the designer's knowledge, the handmade-FIS can offer good performance for the W-EMS. Then, the water-energy management is formulated as an optimization problem. Therefore, genetic algorithm is used to optimize the FIS design to reduce iterative hand-tuning trials. Furthermore, the design of the fuzzy W-EMS can be addressed by a data-driven approach as a third step. This method shows its good performance in terms of water production and energy efficiency compared to the designed FISs by the two previous methods (handmade tuning and genetic algorithm).