Economic Operation and Control Management in Water Diversion Project

The paper is concerned with implementation of control and management systems for water diversion infrastructure project. The Yellow River Diversion Project (YRDP) is a large scale inter-basin water diversion undertaking with the target capability of transferring 1,200 million m3 of water annually. The hydraulic structures and equipment were designed and selected with a view that a responsive control system should be able to maintain the conveyance line in balanced flow in wide range of flow rates utilizing small buffering capacities along the line while pump units operate in a narrow band of the highest efficiency. Distributed nature of the conveyance line and large scale hydraulic equipment necessitated arrangement of conveyance line management facilities in a multi-tiered structure maximizing flexibility of operations. The paper characterizes the main control issues identified in the conveyance line and compares characteristics obtained through simulations and actual measurements on site. It outlines major features of the control and management system developed and implemented for YRDP and how the key requirements of safety, reliability and economic operations were achieved.