Output regulation of large-scale hydraulic networks with minimal steady state power consumption

•An optimized control method is proposed for an overactuated district heating system.•Minimum steady state pump power consumption in the hydraulic network is attained.•Analysis shows zero steady state output error is obtained with minimum pump power.•Numerical simulation illustrates improvement compared with a previous method.

An industrial case study involving a large-scale hydraulic network is examined. The hydraulic network underlies a district heating system, with an arbitrary number of end-users. The problem of output regulation is addressed along with a optimization criterion for the control. The fact that the system is overactuated is exploited for minimizing the steady state electrical power consumption of the pumps in the system, while output regulation is maintained. The proposed control actions are decentralized in order to make changes in the structure of the hydraulic network easy to implement.