Integrated Energy-Water Model for Interdependent Storage, Run-of-River and Pump Hydropower

The dispatch of different types of hydropower plants such as storage, Run of River (RoR) and pumped affects downstream water flows and power generation. These short-term operational impacts (e.g., hourly water release) must be properly modelled and quantified to capture the flexibility of interdependent hydropower plants to provide system support (e.g., reduce energy costs). This paper presents a Linear Programming (LP) model to simulate the operation of interdependent hydropower plants where dedicated hydrologic routing constraints are used to track the flow of water, and quantify relevant impacts on generation. The contribution of this work is the explicit quantification in cost and energy terms of the value of capturing short–term interdependencies between hydropower plants associated with the use and release of water by upstream plants. The results demonstrate that, by explicitly considering interdependencies, it is possible to better coordinate their operation and optimize hydropower generation.