Unit Commitment and Generation Dispatch of a Hydropower Plant in a Competitive Electricity Market

This paper presents a model to solve the short-term scheduling problem of a hydropower plant in a deregulated system, based on dynamic programming techniques. The objective of this model is to maximize the revenue obtained by selling energy in a competitive electricity market. The time horizon of the model is divided into hourly periods and ranges from one day to one week. The proposed model determines both the unit commitment and the power to be generated in each hour of the time horizon. The power is considered as a nonlinear function of the water discharge and the reservoir volume; the dependence of the units and plant operating limits on the available gross head has been taken into account; and the water discharged through the spillway has been also allowed for in the model. This approach has been applied to a practical case study, the results of which are analyzed in detail.