Optimal Operation of Interprovincial Hydropower System Including Xiluodu and Local Plants in Multiple Recipient Regions

Abstract

This paper focuses on the monthly operations of an interprovincial hydropower system (IHS) connected by ultrahigh voltage direct current lines. The IHS consists of the Xiluodu Hydropower Project, which ranks second in China, and local plants in multiple recipient regions. It simultaneously provides electricity for Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces and thus meets their complex operation requirements. This paper develops a multi-objective optimization model of maximizing the minimum of total hydropower generation for each provincial power grid while considering network security constraints, electricity contracts, and plant constraints. The purpose is to enhance the minimum power in dry season by using the differences in hydrology and regulating storage of multiple rivers. The TOPSIS method is utilized to handle this multi-objective optimization, where the complex minimax objective function is transformed into a group of easily solved linear formulations. Nonlinearities of the hydropower system are approximatively described as polynomial formulations. The model was used to solve the problem using mixed integer nonlinear programming that is based on the branch-and-bound technique. The proposed method was applied to the monthly generation scheduling of the IHS. Compared to the conventional method, both the total electricity for Guangdong Power Grid and Zhejiang Power Grid during dry season increased by 6% and 4%, respectively. The minimum monthly power also showed a significant increase of 40% and 31%. It was demonstrated that the hydrological differences between Xiluodu Plant and local hydropower plants in receiving power grids can be fully used to improve monthly hydropower generation.