The Effect of Unsteady Water Discharge through Dams of Hydroelectric Power Plants on Hydrodynamic Regimes of the Upper Pools of Waterworks

Abstract

The hydrological regimes of surface water bodies, as a rule, are unsteady. However, accounting for the non-stationarity substantially complicates the hydrodynamic calculations. Because of this, the scenario approach is traditionally used in the calculations. Characteristic scenarios are set with constant hydrological characteristics throughout the time covered in the calculations. This approach is fully justified if the characteristic time of the change in water flow rate is much longer than the calculation time. However, nowadays, tasks are becoming more and more urgent when accounting for flow variability during calculation period becomes crucial. First of all, such a problem arises when assessing the effect of non-stationary water discharge through hydroelectric power plant dams on the hydrodynamic regime of both the upper and lower pools of the reservoir. In the present paper, the effect of the intraday variability of the Kamskaya Hydroelectric Power Plant (Kamskaya HEPP) operation on the peculiarities of the hydrodynamic regimes of the near-dam part of the upper pool of the Kama reservoir is described. The importance of the problem is determined by the location of the main drinking water intake of Perm city and one of the largest thermal power plants (TPP) in Europe, Permskaya TPP, in this part of the reservoir. This TPP uses a direct-flow cooling system from the Kama reservoir, which is very sensitive to the peculiarities of the hydrodynamic regime of the reservoir. The computational experiments based on the combined hydrodynamic models in 2D/3D formulations have shown that the intraday oscillations of the discharge flow rate through the dam of the HEPP have a very significant effect on the hydrodynamic regime of the reservoir in the vicinity of the Permskaya TPP; therefore, these effects must be taken into account when minimizing the risks of thermal effluents entering the intake channel of the Permskaya TPP.