HydroSim© is a dynamic programming model that simulates the hourly operations of hydroelectric generating facilities. The model solves the economic dispatch of thermally-integrated hydroelectric power generating systems.

The model incorporates complex environmental restrictions including total water release, minimum flow, maximum flow, reservoir elevation, and upward and downward ramping restrictions. The model can be customized to capture additional environmental and regulatory restrictions, including those that limit hourly changes in reservoir elevations, and other factors that affect the operation of hydroelectric facilities, including spinning reserve requirements, and generator by-pass. In addition, the model incorporates nonlinear head effects and can be solved for both near-term (e.g., daily and weekly) to long-term (monthly and annual) time horizons. The user can specify hourly market prices, load, and other variables to offer a completely customized model for virtually any hydroelectric generating facility. The model is internally consistent and has been peer reviewed for publication in a leading professional economics journal.

As a result of this flexibility, HydroSim© has a broad range of applications including estimating the effects that alternative environmental and regulatory restrictions, changes in wholesale market prices, and other factors have on hourly water release and generation patterns. It can be used for develop cash-flow estimates for valuing hydroelectric facilities. HydroSim© can also be used to develop water release patterns that allow hydrologists, ecologists, and other natural scientists to determine the effects that alternative dam operations have on the physical downstream environment.

The Base Version of HydroSim© treats an individual hydroelectric facility and predicts the pattern of hydroelectric generation and purchases for resale that satisfy firm power contract commitments, subject to environmental and regulatory restrictions.

The Advanced Version of HydroSim© models hydraulically coupled facilities that include more than one dam connected by a river. In this version, water releases from the upstream facility contribute to the inflows of the downstream facility. As in the base version, environmental and regulatory restrictions, demand, prices, spillage, and other factors can be integrated into the advanced version of HydroSim© on an individual facility basis. The figure below shows hourly generation and purchases for resale from the advanced version of HydroSim applied to two facilities. 

HydroSim© was developed by Brian Edwards (Brian K. Edwards Associates), Silvio Flaim (Flaim and Associates), and Richard Howitt (Department of Agricultural Economics, University of California, Davis).

HydroSim© is copyright by Brian K. Edwards, 1997-2007.