Beschreibung

In a rapidly changing world climate, understanding the interdependencies between water and energy resources is a priority for private and public institutions. In this context, hydropower is a strategic factor representing one of the most relevant water uses in the Alpine region. In particular, the optimal management of storage reservoirs associated with hydropower plants is of paramount importance for electricity production while ensuring sufficient volumes of water to cover other demands. However, optimization of hydropower generation is a complex forecasting problem requiring accurate prediction of electricity prices and water availability under different time horizons, ranging from short-term (up to several days) to mid-term (up to several months, often termed as seasonal).

The original contribution of SHE project resides in the seasonal modeling and forecasting of both water inflow into storage reservoirs and electricity prices. While there are many studies on short-term predictions for hydropower generation, a comprehensive approach for seasonal forecasting that takes into account streamflow generation, optimization of storage reservoirs and energy demand is still missing and urgently needed by academic researchers and practitioners. All the current methods have drawbacks either due to lack of details in representing the hydrological system (e.g. lack in direct coupling between weather seasonal forecasting systems with hydrological models, or absence of specific modules for simulating human-water interactions) or because of overly simplistic econometric models (e.g. lack of a structure of temporal dependencies and/or contemporary dependencies among variables).

Motivated by these issues, the main aim of SHE is to create a framework for optimizing seasonal hydropower generation from storage reservoirs by integrating the explicit simulation of (i) streamflow generation, (ii) human infrastructures present in the hydrological system, and (iii) electricity prices. This aim will be achieved through the close collaboration of an interdisciplinary consortium with complimentary expertise in the following areas: distributed hydrological modelling of water resources management in human-modified systems; statistical analysis of complex dependence in environmental and economic variables; econometric modelling of electricity prices; optimization of complex water distribution networks; and seasonal forecast of meteorological variables.

The expected innovative outcomes from the SHE project are:

• innovative econometric models to predict the seasonal behaviour of electricity prices;
• an integrated hydrological modeling platform enabling to simulate the management of storage reservoirs and water diversions;
• a framework enabling seasonal optimization of hydropower generation from storage reservoirs, including the evaluation of uncertainties associated to both hydrological and econometric models.

Partner

Lead Partner Universität Trient, Departement für Bauwesen, Umwelt und Maschinenbau (DICAM), Partner Freie Universität Bozen, Fakultät für Ingenieurwesen, Partner Freie Universität Bozen, School of Economics and Management, Partner Universität Trient, Departement Wirtschaft und Management