Application of Cellular Automata in Bi-Objective Operation of Multi Reservoir Systems

Abstract

Optimal operation of multi-reservoir systems is one the most challenging problems in water resource management due to their multi-objective nature and time-consuming solving process. In this paper, Multi-Reservoir Parallel Cellular Automata-Simulated Annealing (MPCA-SA), a hybrid method based on cellular automata and simulated annealing is presented for solving bi-objective operations of multi-reservoir systems problems. The problem considers the bi-objective operation of a multi-reservoir system with the two conflicting objectives of water supply and hydropower generation. The MPCA-SA method uses two single-objective cellular automata acting in parallel to explore the problem search space and find the optimal solutions based on the probabilistic interaction with each other. Bi-objective operation of the Dez-Gotvand-Masjed Soleyman three-reservoir system, as a real-world system in southwestern Iran for a period of 60 months, is considered in order to evaluate the ability of the proposed method. In addition, a Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGAII) is also used to solve the problems and the results are compared with those of MPCA-SA, indicating the capabilities of the proposed MPCA-SA method. The results show that the MPCA-SA method is able to produce solutions comparable to those of NSGAII with a much-reduced computational cost equal to 1.2% of that required by the NSGAII, emphasizing the efficiency and practicality of the proposed method.