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SOCRATES: A system for scheduling hydroelectric generation under uncertainty

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Abstract

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the largest investor-owned energy utility in the United States, obtains a significant fraction of its electric energy and capacity from hydrogeneration. Although hydro provides valuable flexibility, it is subject to usage limits and must be carefully scheduled. In addition, the amount of energy available from hydro varies widely from year to year, depending on precipitation and streamflows. Optimal scheduling of hydrogeneration, in coordination with other energy sources, is a stochastic problem of practical significance to PG&E. SOCRATES is a system for the optimal scheduling of PG&E's various energy sources over a one- to two-year horizon. This paper concentrates on the component of SOCRATES that schedules hydro. The core is a stochastic optimization model, solved using Benders decomposition. Additional components are streamflow forecasting models and a database containing hydrological information. The stochastic hydro scheduling module of SOCRATES is undergoing testing in the user's environment, and we expect PG&E hydrologists and hydro schedulers to place progressively more reliance upon it.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Jonathan Jacobs, Gary Freeman & Gary Schultz

  2. Consultant, c/o Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Jan Grygier

  3. University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA

    David Morton

  4. Deutsche Verbundgesellschaft e.V., Heidelberg, Germany

    Konstantin Staschus

  5. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Jery Stedinger

Authors
  1. Jonathan Jacobs
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  2. Gary Freeman
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  3. Jan Grygier
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  4. David Morton
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  5. Gary Schultz
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  6. Konstantin Staschus
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  7. Jery Stedinger
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Jacobs, J., Freeman, G., Grygier, J. et al. SOCRATES: A system for scheduling hydroelectric generation under uncertainty. Ann Oper Res 59, 99–133 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02031745

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