Dispatch of Head Dependent Hydro Units: Modeling for optimal generation in electricity market

Deregulation and liberalization of electric power industry, among other things, has created new requirements for the market participants. The power system engineer, operator, and, in general, the market participant is being faced with requirements for which he does not have adequate training and the proper software tools. In this framework, among others, a pure hydro-generation company has to (1) operate its hydro units, throughout the operating day, trying to fulfill the market clearing schedule, and modify the program in the intra-day energy markets if necessary (or more suitable) as real-time operation is getting closer and (2) make the offers for the regulation service market. In this scenario the Dispatch of Head Dependent Hydro Units is a problem that must be solved before dealing with the hourly hydro resource scheduling for energy and reserve optimization.