Optimal dispatching of hydropower cascadeCHINGOSKA, MARIJA (Avtor) Pantoš, Miloš (Mentor) hydro cascadeshort-term schedulingoptimizationmixed-integer linear programming MILPWith the growth of electric power demand and clean energy movements, the increased introduction of renewables, like solar and wind power, into Europe's power system is causing significant fluctuations of the power generation in the system. Thanks to its generation flexibility and energy-storing capabilities, hydropower can stabilize these injected fluctuations in the electrical grid. Connecting the power demand growth and the increased variability of power generation in the system, it is clear that the need for increased hydropower generation is also imposed. One way to increase hydropower generation is to focus on improving existing hydro units' efficiencies by optimizing their operation. This analysis aims to determine optimal short-term generation schedules of hydro units belonging to one cascaded hydro system along the basin of river Soča while meeting the required hourly power demand and conforming to all operational constraints. Short-term scheduling optimization of a cascaded hydro system is always a challenge, where its non-linear nature needs to be formulated as a computer model. This analysis proposes a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) approach in solving this problem, where all physical constraints of the cascaded system are represented with a set of equality and inequality equations. All non-linear dependencies, for example, the relation between the power generation, hydrostatic head, and turbine water discharge, are linearized using piecewise linearization with binary values. After a feasible model of the cascaded hydro system is defined, with all of its characteristics and operational limitations, its optimal solution is found by using a commercial optimization solver. The model is tested by using real-case data of production demand for the cascaded hydro system on river Soča as input data. The obtained results for a scheduling horizon of 7 continuous days are presented.20222022-03-16 10:30:00Magistrsko delo/naloga135479VisID: 55041COBISS_ID: 101144579sl