| Several research projects and studies have been devoted to optimize river hydropower management. The importance given to this issue has been motivated by the significant potential gain that optimization can drive.;Within hydropower stations, management consists in, one side, appropriately commit the units and, on the other side, address the distribution of the output between on-line units.;At the river level, the purpose of short-term management is to get an optimal schedule of hydropower stations supply and spillage from reservoirs while respecting the operation constraints. Of course, it should integrate correctly the hydropower stations requirements.;In the present thesis, a constructive approach is adopted. It introduces progressively the complexity of real problems at these different levels: modeling, optimization and usefulness of each program as stand-alone module or within global management system. The unit loading problem is presented first, then the unit commitment problem that encompasses the previous problem, and finally the short term river management. All the software issued from this work is on use or will be soon integrated in river management system of several major companies in North America. |
