Policy Design for Optimizing the Hydropower Generation Potential of Maithon Multi-purpose Reservoir System

Abstract

It is proposed to develop an optimal operating policy for the Maithon multi-purpose reservoir system, situated at Maithon, which is approximately 48 km from the district of Dhanbad (Jharkhand), India. The present objective is to maximize hydropower generation subjected to reservoir mass balance, release, storage, reservoir-drawdown level, overflow, maximum flood zone space, maximum and minimum storage constraints under three different dependable inflow conditions namely 50%, 70% and 90%. The storage curves also been derived after analyzing the various policies and was observed to be persistent with that of demand requirements. The derived policy is capable of producing maximum annual hydropower of 133394.43 MWh, 103015.14 MWh and 61782.77 MWh for 50%, 70% and 90% dependable inflow conditions respectively against the existing generated values of hydropower as 102958.3 MWh which has been averaged over last 10 years. Further the firm hydropower power values obtained under 50%, 70% and 90% dependable inflow conditions are 5.773 MW, 3.421 MW and 2.67 MW respectively. In this study the potential of hydropower energy production of the reservoir system is explored extensively, and a trade-off between reservoir release especially for irrigation purpose and maximum energy production has been established for the use of various stakeholders as well as managers of reservoir operations.