The economic value of coordination in large‐scale multireservoir systems: The Parana River case

Abstract

[1] The coordination of reservoir operation is critical for water systems' efficiency. Improved coordination requires sharing information, demanding a clear understanding of the potential gains and its distribution among the users to motivate engagement in coordinated operations and bearing of transaction costs. In a multiuser, multireservoir system, the evaluation of the potential coordination gains is not trivial because it requires the simultaneous evaluation of numerous trade offs. This paper presents a methodology to identify the likely upper and lower bounds in multireservoir system benefits, providing a reference framework for analyzing the economic value of coordination. The methodology is applied to a large-scale multireservoir system in Brazil. The methods rely on the comparison between two management scenarios. The first one mimics typical system operation based on individually designed rule curves, which are likely to perform on the lower bound. This is compared with fullscale system-wide optimization through an Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming algorithm to represent fully coordinated reservoir operation (upper bound). For our case study, results indicate that better coordination reduced spills and improved releases timing according to reservoirs characteristics and location, allowing overall gains between 3% and 8% in energy and 7.9% in revenues, with revenues mostly improved by coordination in dry years. Larger reservoirs presented the highest gains in absolute terms, while the smaller ones presented the highest relative increases. By indicating individual gains at each reservoir, valuable information is produced to support future negotiations and benefit sharing among different agents, being water agencies or power companies.

Optimal Operation of the Multireservoir System in the Seine River Basin Using Deterministic and Ensemble Forecasts

“…As suggested by Dorchies et al (2014), the current management efficiency could be improved by a centralized and anticipatory management strategy. In centralized management, operational decisions at each location are optimized simultaneously considering the overall response of the multi-reservoir system, potentially leading to a strong increase in the system performances (see for instance Anghileri et al, 2013;Giuliani and Castelletti, 2013;Marques and Tilmant, 2013). In anticipatory water management, numerical weather forecasts are combined with simulation-optimization models to take operational actions before an event occurs (e.g.…”

A dynamic water accounting framework based on marginal resource opportunity cost

“…1-4) can be solved, for example, by stochastic dual dynamic programming. This algorithm has been described in details in Goor et al (2010) and in Marques and Tilmant (2013). Note that the proposed accounting framework could be established with the help of any other hydro-economic model, centralized or decentralized, as long as it provides allocation decisions and the corresponding MROC.…”

Developing a decision support framework for real‐time flood management using integrated models

“…This model setup is the second part of the DSS, which links hydrological modelling and downstream flood inundation mapping. HEC‐ResSim is used for practical research studies in water resources management (Babazadeh et al ., ; USACE, ; Carmi‐Duren, ; USACE, ; Asefa, ; Marques and Tilmant, ; Uysal et al ., , ; Bhadra et al ., ; Nauditt et al ., ).…”

“…This model setup is the second part of the DSS, which links hydrological modelling and downstream flood inundation mapping. HEC-ResSim is used for practical research studies in water resources management (Babazadeh et al, 2007;USACE, 2007;Carmi-Duren, 2009;USACE, 2010;Asefa, 2011;Marques and Tilmant, 2013; Uysal et al, 2013Uysal et al, , 2016Bhadra et al, 2015;Nauditt et al, 2015). The physical and operational data that describe an operation plan or scheme are introduced into HEC-ResSim.…”