Competitive Relationship between Flood Control and Power Generation with Flood Season Division: A Case Study in Downstream Jinsha River Cascade Reservoirs

The lower reaches of Jinsha River host the richest hydropower energy sources in China. With the construction of Wudongde and Baihetan, the multi-objective optimization for cascade reservoirs (along with Xiluodu and Xiangjia Dam) in the lower reaches of Jinsha River will create significant benefits. This paper focuses on the competitive relationship between flood control and power generation, and attaches attention to the measurement of different objective functions and their competitive relationship. With observations of the flood in 1974, 1981, and 1985, a 100-year return period flood with peak-3d volume pair as different inputs for the optimal model is approached by NSGA-II. Different flood seasons divided by flood feature is applied to figure out specific competitive relationship. The results can be concluded as the following: (1) Strong competitive relationship mainly occurs in pre-flood season. (2) Whether it shows a strong competitive relationship depends on the amount of discharge. If the turbine is set to full capacity, power generation is fulfilled certainly, which means that there exists a weak competitive relationship between multi-objectives. (3) The different processes of floods have an effect on the duration of a competitive relationship. A flood with a late peak causes the extension of strong competition in the pre-flood season, which lends itself to a strong competition relationship in the post-flood season. (4) The intensity of competition in the pre-flood season is higher than that in the post-flood season because it has a larger range.