Hydropower Scheduling Toolchains: Comparing Experiences in Brazil, Norway, and USA and Implications for Synergistic Research
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 149, Issue 7
Abstract
While hydropower scheduling is a well-defined problem, there are institutional differences that need to be identified to promote constructive and synergistic research. We study how established toolchains of computer models are organized to assist operational hydropower scheduling in Brazil, Norway, and the United States’ Colorado River System (CRS). These three systems have vast hydropower resources, with numerous, geographically widespread, and complex reservoir systems. Although the underlying objective of hydropower scheduling is essentially the same, the systems are operated in different market contexts and with different alternative uses of water, where the stakeholders’ objectives clearly differ. This in turn leads to different approaches when it comes to the scope, organization, and use of models for operational hydropower scheduling and the information flow between the models. We describe these hydropower scheduling toolchains, identify the similarities and differences, and shed light on the original ideas that motivated their creation. We then discuss the need to improve and extend the current toolchains and the opportunities to synergistic research that embrace those contextual differences.
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Data Availability Statement
No data or computer models were used in this research.
Acknowledgments
This work was coauthored SINTEF Energy Research funded by The Research Council of Norway through Project No. 257588, Argonne National Laboratory (Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357), and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, managed by Battelle (Contract No. DE-AC05-76RL01830) for the US Department of Energy. The research was supported by the HydroWIRES Initiative of DOE’s Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Contract CNPq 409715/2021-2).
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Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 149 • Issue 7 • July 2023
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Jul 3, 2022
Accepted: Feb 3, 2023
Published online: May 13, 2023
Published in print: Jul 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Oct 13, 2023
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