Operation of pumped storage hydropower plants through optimization for power systems

Abstract

Worldwide, there is an increase in the number of energy storage systems that are installed as a result of several benefits. These systems bring uniformity and efficiency improvements to electrical grids by storing and returning energy to the grid. They help with the integration of the new renewable energy sources, mitigating the intermittency of these sources, which is the main problem to implement them on a large scale. One of the most widespread kinds of these systems is the Pumped Storage Hydropower Plant, with an installed power capacity of 153 GW at global level. This work presents a new Mixed Integer Linear Programming model to operate these plants by maximizing the received profits. The model is distinguished from others because it allows the inclusion of a greater number of breakpoints, which means that more realistic solutions can be obtained by reducing the computational effort. To prove the usefulness of the formulation, two real plants located in Argentine Republic are tested: Rio Grande and Los Reyunos power plants which have a total installed power capacity of 975 MW. Results indicate that the proposed model reaches feasible solutions with a sufficient level of accuracy with CPU times of less than 1 s.