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Optimal operation of a hydroelectric reservoir

University of British Columbia

This thesis examines the influence of different degrees of serial correlation in the streamflow records on optimal operation of a hydroelectric reservoir. This thesis also investigates the practical aspects of choosing different decision variables, considering effects on ease of implementation, total benefit, and actual use for real-time operations. Stochastic dynamic programming was used to optimize the long-term operation of a hydroelectric project with a single reservoir. Reservoir inflows were analyzed using monthly flow record for 58 years with the assumption that monthly inflows are either perfectly correlated, uncorrelated, or partially correlated. Reservoir level change and powerhouse discharge were considered as alternative decision variables for each of the three cases of inflow serial correlation. The optimization results were then examined and compared to determine the significance of the choice of decision variables and to explore the effects of inflow serial correlation on practical operating decisions which might be based on the results of the optimization. It was found that (1) Case 2 in which inflows were assumed perfectly correlated and Case 3 with partially correlated inflows produce, respectively, highest and lowest total expected return, (2) the difference in total expected return between cases depends largely upon the physical characteristics of the system, (3) the reservoir level change decision case produces more conservative results than the discharge decision case, (4) the results from the reservoir level change decision are easier to use for realtime operation than those from the discharge decision case, (5) different results will be produced with different choice of decision variables.

Text

2010-07-20

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26694

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

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