A Monthly Hydropower Scheduling Model of Cascaded Reservoirs with the Zoutendijk Method

A monthly hydropower scheduling determines the flows, storage, and power generation of each reservoir/hydropower plant over a planning horizon to maximize total revenue or minimize operational cost. The problem is typically complex nonlinear optimization that involves equality inequality constraints including water balance, hydraulic coupling between cascaded plants, bounds on reservoir etc. This work applied Zoutendijk algorithm for first time medium/long-term reservoirs, where generating discharge capacity handled with an iterative procedure, while other head-related are represented exponential functions fitting discrete points. procedure starts at initial feasible solution, from which it finds improving direction, along better solution sought one-dimensional search. results demonstrate algorithm, when six reservoirs Lancang River, worked very well in maximizing production ensuring highest firm output be secured.