Qualifying Coordination Mechanism for Cascade-Reservoir Operation with a New Game-Theoretical Methodology

Abstract

The coordinated operation for hydropower generation in cascade reservoirs is critical to resolve the conflicts in hydropower needs between upstream and downstream reservoirs. Due to the individual rationality and collective rationality highlighted by game theory, we propose an integrated game-theoretical model to simulate the coordination behaviors among cascade reservoirs for hydropower generation. In the case study of a cascade-reservoir system in the Yangtze River of China, three operation models are compared and analyzed: the non-cooperative model, centralized model, and integrated game-theoretical model. The factors influencing the coordination efficiency of the integrated game-theoretical model are also explored in this study. The results indicate that the system’s hydropower generation obtained by the integrated game-theoretical model is closer to the ideal solution obtained by the centralized model compared to that obtained by the non-cooperative model. Moreover, individual hydropower generation in non-cooperation (rational individual gains) is guaranteed by the integrated game-theoretical model, which is neglected by the centralized model. Furthermore, the coordination efficiency of the integrated game-theoretical model is influenced by the water availability variation and regulation capacities of cascade reservoirs.

A Data-Driven Bilevel Model for Estimating Operational Information of a Neighboring Rival’s Reservoir in a Competitive Context

“…As motioned above, the water head is the effective difference between the forebay and tailwater levels, as illustrated in Figure 3. Theoretically, it can be calculated by the formulation of (7), where the loss of water head h loss indicates the energy loss in conversion due to viscous force and external resistances on water. Forebay water level depends on water storage, as formulated in (5), where z(•) is the specific function for the reservoir under concern.…”

“…However, in a competitive context, the operational information of other reservoirs is usually inaccessible since a river basin generally consists of multiple stakeholders and all the stakeholders are individually rational and self-interested [4]. Cooperative behavior is believed can promote systemic benefits maximization [5]- [7]. But these behaviors generally involve information sharing, interest transferring, and even breaking regulatory requirements so that the situation is rarely achieved in practice [8], [9].…”

Water-food-energy nexus for transboundary cooperation in Eastern Africa

“…Multi-reservoir systems operation and coordination have been extensively addressed in the literature. Examples of application include: the Mekong River basin (Yu et al 2019;Do et al 2020), the Yangtze River basin (Xu et al 2018), the Zambezi River basin (Giuliani & Castelletti 2013), and the Nile River basin (Digna et al 2018;Wheeler et al 2018;Verhagen et al 2021). Optimization-based methods to maximize total system benefits (Koutsoyiannis & Economou 2003;Labadie 2004;Goor et al 2010;Reed et al 2013;Bai et al 2015;Tsoukalas & Makropoulos 2015b;Tsoukalas et al 2016;Loucks & van Beek 2017) and cooperative game theory approaches (Madani & Hooshyar 2014;Yu et al 2019;Do et al 2020) are some of the most often encountered.…”

A novel data-driven analytical framework on hierarchical water allocation integrated with blue and virtual water transfers

“…District irrigation in many countries usually involves two different hierarchical structures: a water affairs bureau and water usage sectors. Previous studies have employed stochastic dynamic, multi-objective programming models to resolve the conflicting objectives in water allocation problems (Zeng et al, 2017;Xu et al, 2018Xu et al, , 2019. However, these models have neglected dynamic feedback mechanisms possibly existing in different hierarchical structures, resulting in solutions that do not maximize benefits at the system scale.…”