Optimizing water supply and hydropower reservoir operation rule curves: An imperialist competitive algorithm approach

Abstract

Efficient reservoir management requires the implementation of generalized optimal operating policies that manage storage volumes and releases while optimizing a single objective or multiple objectives. Reservoir operating rules stipulate the actions that should be taken under the current state of the system. This study develops a set of piecewise linear operating rule curves for water supply and hydropower reservoirs, employing an imperialist competitive algorithm in a parameterization–simulation–optimization approach. The adaptive penalty method is used for constraint handling and proved to work efficiently in the proposed scheme. Its performance is tested deriving an operation rule for the Dez reservoir in Iran. The proposed modelling scheme converged to near-optimal solutions efficiently in the case examples. It was shown that the proposed optimum piecewise linear rule may perform quite well in reservoir operation optimization as the operating period extends from very short to fairly long periods.