Short-Term Peak-Shaving Operation of Head-Sensitive Cascaded Hydropower Plants Based on Spillage Adjustment

Abstract

There are many cascaded hydropower plants with poor regulation performance and sensitive water heads accompanied by water spillage during the wet season. Faced with the increasing load peak–valley differences, it is necessary to tap the peak-shaving potential of such head-sensitive cascaded hydropower plants (HSCHPs) because relying solely on hydropower plants with better regulation performance for peak shaving is inadequate. To address the modeling, solving, and water spillage treatment difficulties posed by HSCHPs, a new short-term peak-shaving method based on spillage adjustment is introduced. First, fuzzy cluster analysis is used to determine when to release more water spillage by automatically identifying valley periods of the daily load curve. Furthermore, a spillage adjustment strategy, implemented through an easy gate operation, is adopted to readjust the water release during each period of the load curve. The ratio of the water spillage released in advance in a certain period to its total water spillage is defined as the water spillage ratio (WSR) of the period. Finally, a mixed-integer linear programming model linearized by special ordered sets of type two is solved to determine the optimal WSRs, which achieves the optimal peak-shaving effect. HSCHPs in the Hongshui River Basin during the wet season were selected as case studies. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve a good peak-shaving effect without significantly reducing the power generation and adding additional water spillage.