Mitch Clement, M.S. Candidate, will talk about his research on these 
projects with Tim Magee, Research Associate and Prof. Edie Zagona, 
Director of CADSWES.

Title: Research on the Effects of Wind Generation on Hydropower Systems

Abstract:
The Center for Advanced Decison Support for Water and Environmental 
Systems (CADSWES) develops and maintains decision support tools used by 
water management agencies and utilites for improving water management 
and carries out research projects that utilize these tools. Hydropower 
generation is an important use of water throughout the world, providing 
an inexpensive, renewable and flexible power source that can respond to 
fluctuating demands. In recent years wind power has gained favor as 
another renewal energy source. Installed wind generation capacity has 
grown substantially in recent years and is projected to continue to grow 
at a rapid pace. The variability and uncertainty associated with wind 
generation can lead to stability issues in the power grid when 
generation does not match demand if sufficient balancing reserves are 
not available. Hydropower is a valuable resource which offers the 
potential to balance the variability of wind generation and can help 
coordinate wind
generation with power demand. Hydropower’s capacity as a balancing 
reserve is limited, however, by non-power operational constraints 
resulting from environmental objectives and the multi-use nature of most 
hydropower facilities. Operating hydropower plants to balance increased 
variability can impact the system’s ability to operate at optimum 
efficiency and can shift the timing of hydro generation impacting its 
economic value. It may also affect the system’s ability to meet all 
non-power constraints.

This presentation will summarize two research projects at CADSWES that 
utilize the RiverWare modeling tool to evaluate the effects of wind 
integration on hydropower systems with realistic modeling of non-power 
constraints. The first, funded by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory, developed a framework using RiverWare's 
optimization solution to model integrated hydropower and wind generation 
on the highly-constrained Mid-Columbia River in central Washington. 
Impacts on system performance metrics and the ability to meet all 
non-power constraints were considered. The second project, currently 
ongoing and funded by the Hydropower Research Foundation through a 
Fellowship to Mitch Clement, investigates the effects of wind generation 
on the value of energy and ancillary services that a hydropower system 
can sell into a market. The research has involved enhancements to 
RiverWare to model total dissolved gas and ancillary services in order 
to capture significant
impacts from wind integration.