Authors: R. Allen, T. Olason, and S. G. Bridgeman
Abstract
The advent of the open access transmission concept and the pending unbundling of the electric utility industry means that generators will compete for sales on the basis of selling price on the open market. The traditional market for hydroelectric power will no longer be the ratepayers of vertically integrated utilities or long-term sales contracts. To survive in the competitive marketplace, hydroelectric generators will need to pursue all possible means of economic efficiency. A key element of meeting this objective will be the use of a computerized support system that could assist operations managers in making decisions - a "Decision Support System" or "DSS".
A DSS consists of a tightly integrated computer hardware and software package readily usable by system operators as a decision-making tool for power system operation management decisions. The DSS consists of three logical components: a graphical user interface (GUI), a database management system (DBMS), and a library of processing algorithms. The GUI provides a fast, user-friendly graphical interface for convenient interfacing between man and machine; the DBMS offers fast, reliable access to the current system status, historical status records, as well as all pertinent system features. A collection of "smart" processing algorithms are designed to answer a variety of operator queries at a moments notice. The processing algorithms include load forecasting, inflow forecasting, generation scheduling and power exchange, or transaction, planning. The DSS must address these power system management problems in a manner that ensures long-term efficiency in water resource management as well as the short term operations, to maximize the net benefits to the utility.
