Determination of the optimal operation and production conditions for cascade renewable hydroelectric power plants

Nearly %20 of the World's electricity is supplied by hydroelectric power systems. Hydroelectric power is the most important resource among the other renewables since; it has been using widely more than a century, supplying water and flood prevention for developing cities. In Turkey's electricity production, hydroelectric power plants have a historical place of as being a domestic and clean resource. Hydropower production capacity had the largest share among the other resources until 1990's in Turkey. Today, electricity has been supplied predominantly by fossil fuels. Consequently, greenhouse gas emissions, energy dependence and foreign trade deficit have been increasing significantly. As being the renewable own resource, hydropower is the first option to remedy this situation. Developed countries have utilized their great hydroelectric potential sites extensively. Thus, the importance of small renewable hydropower plants has been increasing vastly. Small renewable hydropower plants have limited environmental effect and make electricity production in the remote areas possible. River basin management is becoming important in order to fully utilize the hydropower potential of Turkey. The most efficient hydropower plant system can be determined by the evaluation of the long term river flow data. The number and location of plants, total flow rate, number of turbines and determination of the order of reservoirs with respect to storage capacity must be determined carefully. Furthermore, production planning for an already existing hydropower plant system is a highly complex optimization problem. Water flow is the main input of the system and it is highly related to meteorological phenomena. On the other hand, management has to consider; the demand, production, profit and environmental factors. In this study, determination of the hydropower potential for a basin and production planning for a cascade small hydropower system have been analyzed. The computations are based on the production data of a cascade hydropower system with four small renewable hydropower plants on Dalaman Basin. Initially, the flow data of Dalaman Basin between October 1963 –September 2010 have been used and the energy potential has been determined by flow duration curve method In order to analyze the operation conditions of small cascade hydropower system, a mathematical model and a consequent computer program were developed. The optimal usage of reservoirs was analyzed due to the river flow rate and electricity prices in twenty four hours production intervals. Current and possible production planning alternatives were evaluated with the computer program. Generalized solutions consistent with the predefined management conditions were founded. Additionally, various plant alignment alternatives were considered in order to increase the electricity production efficiency and reduce the construction costs.