Multi-Stage Dynamic Programming Method for Short-Term Cascade Reservoirs Optimal Operation with Flow Attenuation

Abstract

In Short-term Cascade Reservoirs Optimal Operation (SCROO), the flow from upstream reservoir to downstream reservoir which propagates in the natural channel can be generalized as not only transposition but also attenuation. In order to get the relative accurate inflow series of downstream reservoir, the paper tries to adopt the Muskingum model to simulate the inflow of the downstream reservoir instead of the easier processing in most papers of SCROO: ignoring the flow attenuation in natural channel. Considering the flow attenuation between the cascade reservoirs, the SCROO problem do not satisfy the “Principe of Optimality” anymore, so the Dynamic Programming(DP) is no longer applicable. The paper proposes a new improved DP named Multi-Stage Dynamic Programming (MSDP) based on DP. In MSDP, multi-stage’s outflow of upstream reservoir is taken into account at the same time and then inflow of downstream reservoir can be calculated by the Muskingum model, which can include much more flow information than the easier processing with DP, and the inflow of downstream reservoir will be closer to the actual one. The paper takes the cascade hydro-power stations consisting of Jindong and Guandi in Yalong river basin as an example to solve the SCROO problem with MSDP. By comparing the operation result of MSDP and DP with the easier processing, the operation strategy of MSDP can gain further benefits than DP’s in actual operation.