CONCEPT TO CLOSURE:

PRACTICAL STEPS
14 - 16 October 2019, Porto - Portugal

Decision support programs for the

optimization of reservoir operation
Radu Popa, Professor, UPB
Florica Popa, Technical Manager, ISPH Project Development
Eliza Tica, Assistant Professor, UPB
Bogdan Popa, Associate Professor, UPB
+40720528266, bogdan.popa@upb.ro
Hydropower Engineering, Water Resources Management,
Faculty of Power Engineering, Hydraulic Department,
University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, Romania
President of Romanian Small Hydropower Association - ROSHA
www.rosha.ro
 Interior resources:
1,700 m3/year inhabitant, or
3,250 m3/year inhabitant taking into
account the Danube
4,864 watercourses 78,905 km long
(inventoried and coded)
Accession to the European Union on the 1st of January 2007, together with Bulgaria
 Romania has almost 6.8 GW installed in about 110 large HPPs and
600 SHPPs (according to the EU definition adopted in national
legislation, HPPs having the installed capacity smaller or at most equal to 10
MW).

The first HPP in Romania is Peles, built on Peles river in 1884, for lighting
the gardens of Peles Castle, the summer residence of the kings of Romania,
built by the first king, Carol I (1866 – 1914), between 1873 and 1884 (1 st in
the world in 1878 in Cragside).

 The plant has a head of 125 m, an installed flow of 150 l/s, equipped with
two Girard turbines, 500 rot/min, having a power of about 150 kW and a
Before thinking to build new large HPPs, almost impossible now in Romania,
OR
To refurbish or modernize the existing HPPs,
OR
To develop other forms of Hidden hydro
We consider that
There is a large hydropower potential hidden in a poor operation of the existing
hydropower developments.

We present some of our preoccupations about DSPs for reservoir

operation developed within our team in UPB, over the last 20
years, for hydropower developments in Romania.
 HIDROELECTRICA manages:
104 dams of which 89 large dams (height > 10 m and the volume > 1 mcm),
out of which:
8 have height >100 m, the highest is Gura Apelor dam with height = 168 m;
6 have the volume >100 mcm, the largest storage is Portile de Fier I (2.1 bcm)
~ 350 km of headraces and tailrace tunnels;
~ 750 km underground under-pressure or free-level galleries;
~ 650 km contour dams (dykes) at the storages with a permanent retention;
143 secondary catchments;
129 buildings of HPPs with installed capacities over 4 MW.
Total installed capacity on National
Power System in 2018:

Pi = 24,605.73 MW
of which on
HPPs: 6,758.77 MW

Total energy production in 2018:

Et = 64,375 GWh
of which on
HPPs: 17,783 GWh (17,232 GWh in
HPPs managed by Hidroelectrica).
 Strategic operation – long term operation (LTO)
 Tactic operation – medium and short term operation respecting LTO
 Achieving an imposed (planned) energy production
 Optimal distribution of flow (power) among units for a HPP
 Maximization of energy production
 Maximization of the value of the energy production
 Minimization of the volume of water used for producing a planned energy
 Operation in normal conditions, operation during emptying a reservoir and
filling a reservoir
 Formulation of the optimization problem, defining the objective function
 Definition and realization of mathematical model
 Definition of timestep and time horizon
 Data collection:
• Regarding the hydropower development (HPD)
• Hydrology
• Related to reservoirs characteristics (including restrictions) and operation
• Related to hydropower units and the operation
• Related to the price of the energy
 Choice of variables (e.g. volumes or number of units in turbine/pump mode)
The purpose of solving the optimization problem is to determine the unknown values for
which the objective function is maximum or minimum, as defined, in terms of benefit
or cost, with all the restrictions for the decision variables and for the state variables.
 The optimization of reservoir operation for a complex system of HPPs and reservoirs
has too many variables to be solved by classical methods of operational programming
 Impossible for a human operator to consider all the conditions at a certain moment

 Solution:
NATURE INSPIRED ALGORITHMS (EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS)
for creating
DECISION SUPPORT PROGRAMS
 GA
 HBMOA
 BA
 FPA
 SSA …
 Deterministic context Formulation of the optimization problem
All input data is considered to be known
Finding the solution to charge units with minimum water consumption from
the reservoir
Tactical management of HPD operation
The inflows are Stocastic When not enough information is Fuzzy
analyzed statistically Context known about some input data Context
60 Q [m3/s]
a
55 Traditional Solution Algorithms: Newton-Raphson approach
50
45
40 The methods of mathematical programming: Linear Programming,
35
30 Dynamic Programming
25
20
15 Advanced algorithms for hydropower optimization (Heuristic
10 Optimization Methods): Evolutionary algorithms, Nature based
5
0 tt[years]
[ani] algorithms, Logical search algorithms
1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010
 Optimization of reservoir
operation for IRON
GATES I was the first
analyzed for DSPs for
flood transition.

IRON GATES I
Pi = 1069 MW
Qi = 4500 m3/s
Nera river
Dan IRON GATES II
u be 69.5 – 70 maslA Pi = 270 MW
Qi = 3400 m3/s

41 maslA

Timoc
river

© HIDROELECTRICA Website, hidroelectrica.ro

 Lotru Hydropower Development

VIDRA Reservoir

Jidoaia Pump station

Galbenu Reservoir

Lotru downstream
Petrimanu
Pump station
Pump station

LOTRU HPP

© HIDROELECTRICA Website, hidroelectrica.ro

MALAIA HPP
Lotru HPD is the most complex
hydropower system in Romania and can
BRADISOR HPP be considered an open-circuit PSP.
© HIDROELECTRICA Website, hidroelectrica.ro
 Izvorul Muntelui reservoir:
HPP Stejaru (1951-1960):
Dam height: 127 m
Pi = 210 MW
Dam length: 435 m
(2 x 50 MW+ 4 x 27,5 MW)
Total storage: 1,230 mcm
Qi = 178 m3/s
Active storage: 930 mcm
Hbr = 149 m
Em = 434 GWh/year

© HIDROELECTRICA Website, hidroelectrica.ro © HIDROELECTRICA Website, hidroelectrica.ro

 Optimization of reservoir operation for IZV M–STEJARU HPD consist in 3 integrated
DSPs: on long term (> one year), medium term (> one month), short term (day/hour)
+ one program for the optimal distribution of flow/power between the six turbines.
Dynamic programming, fuzzy (inflows Genetic algorithm and artificial neural
Genetic algorithm: evolution of reservoir
are stochastic variables): reservoir network: comparing evolution of reservoir
volume for a five years verification period
volume for different initial volumes volume for a five years verification period
V [mil. mc] V [mil. mc]
V [mil. mc] 1200 1200
1200 VMax Soluţie RNA 3-3-1

1100
1000 1000

1000
800 800
900

800 600 600 Soluţie AG

(Problema 16)

700
400 Vmin 400

600
200 200
500
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Sezoane
400 Sezoane Sezoane
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 6 12 18 24 30 0 6 12 18 24 30
 Vidraru HPP Vidraru dam

Vidraru HPP (1966): Vidraru dam:

Installed capacity = 220 MW Dam height: 166.6 m
Installed flow = 90 m3/s Dam length: 305 m
Gross head = 324 m Live storage: 318.6 mcm
Energy production = 400 GWh/a © HIDROELECTRICA Website, hidroelectrica.ro
 Reservoir storage at the Monthly final Objective function Optimization problem
beginning of January reservoir storage

 
 12 
* 2 Restrictions: min and max allowed
V0 min  f x    Ek  Ek  reservoir storage (level).
 k 1 
Ean = 400 GWh
V0 = 300 mil. m3 Energy production Energy planned

 Optimization problem: Realization of a planned monthly energy production, the one

corresponding to the mean hydrological year complying with all the restrictions.
 Application of Newton-Raphson method that gives an accurate solution of the
optimization problem that can be used as reference solution when assessing the
computational efficiency of nature inspired algorithms.
 Comparing of the computational efficiency of the Honey Bees Mating Optimization
Algorithm (HBMOA), with the efficiency of 3 algorithms:
Firefly Algorithm (FA), Cuckoo Search Algorithm (CS) and Bat Algorithm (BA).
 Vk (MCM)
k NR HBMOA FA CS BA
1
2
261.28
226.96
261.27
226.96
261.36
227.03
261.28
226.76
261.18
226.80
Storage capacity Vk at the end of each
3
4
202.16
227.19
202.11
227.13
202.32
227.36
201.93
226.86
201.95
226.92
month, and mean annual volume
5
6
294.89
348.10
294.76
348.19
295.04
353.47
294.54
347.64
294.58
347.75
difference ΔV, in mcm
7 365.96 366.13 371.30 365.42 365.58
8 364.78 364.87 370.13 364.12 364.37
9 351.46 351.59 356.85 350.82 350.99
10 327.16 327.13 332.57 326.32 326.65
11 303.36 303.28 308.94 302.47 302.81
12 271.16 270.94 276.67 270.28 270.60
ΔV 0 0.088 3.215 0.502 0.357

Computed monthly energy production Ek,

annual energy production E, annual
energy difference ΔE
 Computed storage capacity Vk (mcm)
versus time (in months), within the
Computed monthly energy production Ek (in GWh) storage capacity limits: Vkmin and Vkmax
versus time (in months), with respect to NR reference
Fantanele Res Tarnita Res & HPP
Dam height: 92 m Live stor=15 mcm
Live stor=213 mcm NRL=521.5 masl
Mariselu HPP Pi=45 MW
Pi = 220 MW Lapustesti Res
Hbr = 471 m Live stor=10 mcm
Em = 390 GWh/a NRL=1086 masl

PSP operation:
-not to disturb the operation of the existing development and even
-to improve the performance of the system in which it will be included.
 Usage of HBMOA in connection with the weekly optimal operation of
FTL = 2 HPPs + 1 PSP
 For the mathematical model:

- 8 x 3h timesteps / day
- 7 days / week
it means 3x8x7=168 decision variables:
volumes in T mode at HPP Mariselu and Tarnita
number of pump units in function at PSP
 Price of energy = market price for both the energy produced in T mode

and the energy consumed in P mode

 Objective function: the maximization of the:

net income = value of energy produced (T) – value of energy consumed (P)
 PSP generation
HPP Mărișelu HPP Tarnița
Run mode
E V E V E V Produced energy
1 37.54 8.53 7.84 1.77 133.84 29.97
E (GWh), and their values, V (106 RON)
2 38.09 8.48 7.82 1.71 126.58 28.33
3 37.49 8.44 7.84 1.79 113.27 25.09 Run PSP pumping mode Σ produced energies
E V E V
4 37.37 8.39 7.79 1.79 126.54 27.90
1 176.98 20.16 179.22 40.27
5 37.61 8.29 7.95 1.78 137.17 30.72
2 167.27 17.56 172.49 38.52
6 37.52 8.43 7.83 1.75 136.89 30.64
3 149.77 14.85 158.60 35.32
7 37.52 8.41 7.80 1.78 116.23 25.34
4 167.35 16.16 171.70 38.08
8 37.57 8.35 7.84 1.77 126.65 28.14
5 180.42 19.78 182.73 40.79
9 37.18 8.26 7.74 1.72 133.72 30.18
6 180.94 19.07 182.24 40.82
10 37.51 8.36 7.79 1.77 126.45 27.82
7 153.73 15.32 161.55 35.53
Mean 37.54 8.39 7.82 1.76 127.43 28.41
8 167.18 17.35 172.06 38.26
Min 37.18 8.26 7.74 1.71 113.27 25.09
9 177.18 18.84 178.64 40.16
Max 38.09 8.53 7.95 1.79 137.17 30.72
10 163.53 16.91 171.75 37.95
Consumed energy, total produced energy, Mean 168.43 17.60 173.10 38.57
E (GWh), and their values, V (106 RON) Min 149.77 14.85 158.60 35.32
Max 180.94 20.16 182.73 40.82
Levels in reservoirs and energy production
 Price of energy, in [Euro/MWh], average for year 2018 Mariselu HPP and Tarnita HPP
have the same energy production
Timestep, 3 h
Day
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 as without TL PSP.
Saturday, Sunday 17 11 25 32 30 45 65 50 It is obvious the benefit of TL PSP
Monday to Friday 20 18 40 55 50 50 65 55 for the value of energy production.
 Romania has some experience in hydropower engineering
with almost 6.8 GW installed in about 110 large HPPs and
600 SHPPs.
 The paper presents issues related to some of DSPs developed
by a team from UPB in last 20 years for HPPs in Romania.
 There is a need for the assessment of the real value of
ancillary services.
 It is important the use of DSPs for HPPs operation to increase
efficiency and logic of water use from reservoirs.
 Design, future hydro, construction, upgrading, refurbishment,
financing, research, modelling, innovation, materials, machinery,
trends, climate, pumped storage, safety, flexibility, control,
monitoring, maintenance, failures, environment, challenges, fish
protection, environmental issues, sediments, social, …

are rhymes of POETRY

Reservoir operation!
 CONCEPT TO CLOSURE: PRACTICAL STEPS

Peleș (1884), the 1st HPP in Romania.

Photo: Bogdan Popa