Hierarchical Model Predictive Control applied to Hydro Power Valley

Hydro Power Valleys are large scale systems made of several power plants equipped with pumps and turbines located along the river or at the lower part of the penstocks. These plants are linked together by the electrical grid, and also by the water network. The latter is characterized by a significant time delay. The plant operations have also to comply with technical and environmental requirements concerning the level and flow rate variations. A HD-MPC solution is proposed to manage the large scale constrained and time delayed Hydro Power Valleys. The control consists of two layers. The upper layer optimizes the power profiles on a one-day horizon with a coarse step size. The lower level refines the control for shorter horizon and finer step size. Platform tests in simulation show that the coordination is able to improve the maneuverability of the Hydro Power Valley.