Screening reservoir systems by considering the efficient trade-offs—informing infrastructure investment decisions on the Blue Nile

Abstract

Multi-reservoir system planners should consider how new dams impact downstream reservoirs and the potential contribution of each component to coordinated management. We propose an optimized multi-criteria screening approach to identify best performing designs, i.e., the selection, size and operating rules of new reservoirs within multi-reservoir systems. Reservoir release operating rules and storage sizes are optimized concurrently for each separate infrastructure design under consideration. Outputs reveal system trade-offs using multi-dimensional scatter plots where each point represents an approximately Pareto-optimal design. The method is applied to proposed Blue Nile River reservoirs in Ethiopia, where trade-offs between total and firm energy output, aggregate storage and downstream irrigation and energy provision for the best performing designs are evaluated. This proof-of concept study shows that recommended Blue Nile system designs would depend on whether monthly firm energy or annual energy is prioritized. 39 TWh/yr of energy potential is available from the proposed Blue Nile reservoirs. The results show that depending on the amount of energy deemed sufficient, the current maximum capacities of the planned reservoirs could be larger than they need to be. The method can also be used to inform which of the proposed reservoir type and their storage sizes would allow for the highest downstream benefits to Sudan in different objectives of upstream operating objectives (i.e., operated to maximize either average annual energy or firm energy). The proposed approach identifies the most promising system designs, reveals how they imply different trade-offs between metrics of system performance, and helps system planners asses the sensitivity of overall performance to the design parameters of component reservoirs.