Robust control for Basse-Isere run-of-river cascaded hydroelectric plants

The design of run-of-river hydro-plant automation remains a challenge in combined terms of performance and security. This paper presents an innovative methodology, based on the one hand on identification through available measurements, and on the other hand on a control structure including a local water level control together with a feedforward action. The water level controller, developed from the continuous-time robust pole placement structure of Ph. de Larminat, is examined in a complete discrete-time framework, and requires only some direct manipulations of the assigned poles. This strategy leads to a very simple and efficient design, with easy to tune RST polynomial controllers, and is able to deal with the trade-offs between robustness, performance and noise sensitivity. Results of a first experimental application on the Basse-Isere cascade are presented.