Evaluation of the effective forecast and decision horizon in optimal hydropower generation considering medium-range precipitation forecasts

This paper presents a rolling horizon control (RHC) model to evaluate the effective forecast horizon (EFH) of 10-day forecast inflows derived from quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs) and the effective decision horizon (EDH) for hydropower generation. This paper takes the Huanren hydropower reservoir located in the northeast of China as a case study. Firstly, the 10-day forecast inflows are derived from the QPFs. Then the hydropower generation processes are simulated by the RHC model, and the performances of hydropower generation with different EFHs and EDHs are evaluated, respectively. The results show that: (1) the RHC can adapt to varying conditions by re-optimizing the decisions during the EFH; (2) with the EFH increasing, the hydroelectric reliability increases and the efficiency decreases, while the efficiency and reliability are improved with shortened the EDH.