Establishment of Flexible Reservoir Capacity of Run- of-River Hydropower Plants Based on Hydrological Monitoring and Reporting System and Dynamic Programming Algorithms and Realization of Joint Scheduling Approach

Run-of-river hydropower plants without regulating reservoir capacity face challenges with traditional empirical control methods, as they struggle to flexibly adjust generating units based on inflow conditions. This leads to reduced water resource utilization efficiency and fluctuating unit output, thereby impacting the safe and stable operation of the power grid. To address this issue, a joint scheduling approach for run-of- river hydropower plants is proposed, based on hydrological Monitoring and Reporting Systems and dynamic programming algorithms to establish flexible reservoir capacity. Firstly, addressing the difficulty in measuring and controlling the economic and stability aspects of run-of-river hydropower plants, economic indicators considering time-based electricity prices and stability indicators involving unit output fluctuations are defined. Weight factors are introduced to construct a multi-dimensional generalized nonlinear model. Secondly, a concept of flexible regulating reservoir capacity is proposed to enhance the economic and stability indicators of run-of-river hydropower plants. Based on this concept, specific control strategies and corresponding constraints for implementing the new joint scheduling approach are formulated. Furthermore, considering the multi-stage, multi-constraint, dynamic, and nonlinear characteristics of the optimization scheduling problem for run-of-river hydropower plants, dynamic programming algorithms are employed to solve the dual-objective optimization scheduling model considering economic and stability factors. Numerical calculations are used to compare and analyze the effects of direct generation methods and the new joint scheduling approach. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through experiments. The proposed method effectively enhances the power generation and revenue of hydropower plants while improving the utilization efficiency of hydraulic resources.