Hierarchical hydro power valley control: Validation on simulation platform

• Benefits of two-layer MPC for hydro power valley maneuverability are studied.
• Each layer runs at its own sampling rate and horizon.
• A high-fidelity eight-plant hydro power valley simulator is used for validation.
• The two-layer MPC is connected to a replica of the actual OPC data server.
• The two-layer MPC enhances robustness compared to a global one-layer MPC.

Hydro power valleys (HPV) are large scale interconnected systems. All plant operations have to comply with technical and environmental requirements concerning level, flow rate and power variations. A two-layer hierarchical MPC solution, designed to manage the large scale constrained and time delayed HPV, is tested on a simulation platform. The upper layer optimizes the power profiles on a one-day horizon with a coarse step size. The lower level refines the control for a shorter horizon and step size. Simulations show that the coordination is able to improve the maneuverability of the HPV.