Abstract
The Larona River Basin which cover an area of 2477 km2, including the three cascading lakes: Matano, Mahalona, and Towuti Lakes, is a strategic watershed which acts as the water resource for three hydropower plants that supply 420 Megawatt of electricity to power a nickel processing plant and its supporting facilities and electricity need of the surrounding communities. The maximum and minimum operating levels of Towuti Lake are 319.6 meters (asl) and 317.45 meters (asl) respectively. Total live storage between these two elevations is 1,231,500 m3. Currently, the operation average outflow from Towuti Lake to the power plants is 130.1 m3/second which is resulting in a total annual outflow volume of 4,103,000 m3. By comparing the outflow volume with the live storage volume, it is obvious that present live storage has a limited capability to carry over the capacity from wet to dry years. During a dry year, the outflow drops to 100 m3/second. Thus, the optimization of water resources management in the Larona Basin is important to fulfil the need to produce the energy sources. To deal with the decrease of the Lakes water level, the Weather Modification Technology in the form of cloud seeding is needed to produce rain that will increase the water volume in the Lakes. The dispersion of cloud seeding material into the targeted clouds can be done by surface seeding using the Ground-Based Generator (GBG) which utilize towers to release cloud seeding materials. The tower locations should be in certain altitude or higher locations and amounts in order to operate effectively with optimum results. The water discharges generated from the process is expected in accordance with the planning. The weather modification process is inefficient when the discharge is overflow the spillway channel. Cost incurred is in approximate of US$ $11,133,258.36 if the company is utilizing Diesel Power Plant and Steam Power Plant instead of the weather modification technology.
Highlights
The Larona River Basin which cover an area of 2477 km2, including the three cascading lakes: Matano, Mahalona, and Towuti Lakes, is a strategic watershed which acts as the water resource for three hydroelectric power plants (PLTA) which supply electricity needs
Seedling materials are fired to the clouds through aircraft or ground-based seeding facilities known as the Ground-Based Generator (GBG) [4,5,6,7,8]
3.3 Constraints variable and objective function The objective function of this research is to optimize the location of the GBG Tower including the number so that it matches the target of cloud seeding with flares so that the clouds can rain and fall in the Lake area which serves as a water supplier to the Hydroelectric Power Plant
Summary
The Larona River Basin which cover an area of 2477 km, including the three cascading lakes: Matano, Mahalona, and Towuti Lakes, is a strategic watershed which acts as the water resource for three hydroelectric power plants (PLTA) which supply electricity needs. The three hydropower plants operate by utilizing the water resources from the aforementioned cascading Lakes in the Larona River Basin channeled through the Larona River to the plants’ turbines (Fig. 1). The drop of the water level in the Towuti Lake will disrupt the capacity of the three PLTA to serve the need of nickel production processes. To maintain the water level of the Lakes for the PLTA to operate in their optimum capacity, the company need to utilize Weather Modification Technology (TMC) as an integrated part in the management of water resources. Seedling materials are fired to the clouds through aircraft or ground-based seeding facilities known as the Ground-Based Generator (GBG) [4,5,6,7,8]
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