Application of Genetic Algorithm with Local Search in Optimal Piping Network Design of a District Cooling System

District cooling system (DCS) is a mass-scale production of chilled water generated at a central and remote chiller plant. Through an underground piping network, the chilled water is delivered to serve a group of consumer buildings in a district area. DCS can offer both economical and environmental benefits. Because of the substantial capital investment and running energy involved, an optimal design of the distribution piping network is one of the crucial factors for successful implementation of the district cooling scheme. However, it is impractical to evaluate the huge number of different combinations of piping configuration by exhaustive approach. In the present study, genetic algorithm (GA) was applied to find the optimal or near-optimal configuration of the piping network in a hypothetical district area. In order to improve the solution quality and computational efficiency of the optimization process, a new local search technique was developed and incorporated into GA. The results are encouraging that the local search technique developed can search better solution in the vicinity of a current near-optimal solution. The details of the present study and the future work to be followed are presented in this paper.