In Isère, hydroelectricity is an inexhaustible and renewable source of
energy. For instance, the Grand Maison dam is a Pumped Storage Power plant
(PSP). In this exercice, you will propose a model that allows to optimize
the operation of a PSP.
A PSP is a hydroelectric power plant that stores electrical energy in the
form of gravitational potential energy of water. A PSP consists of two
tanks at different altitudes, the upper and lower tank, and one or several
machines called pump-turbines, which can operate as a pump or as a turbine.
When a pump-turbine is running in pump mode, energy is used to move water
from the lower tank to the upper tank. When a pump-turbine runs in turbine
mode, energy is produced by moving the water from the upper tank to the
lower tank. Through these two processes, energy can be stored by pumping
and then redistributed later by turbining. Next Figure represents a PSP
Knowing that the price of electricity varies over time, it is possible to
make a profit by storing energy when it is inexpensive and by selling it when it is expensive. The price of electricity changes each hour, which means
that it is constant over one hour and usually changes from one hour to the
next. Thus the operation of a machine in turbine mode at a power of 100 MW
for one hour yields 1000€ if the price of electricity is 10€/MWh.
The purpose of this study is to design an optimization model for the
operation of a PSP while respecting the constraints of the system. This
model will be solved with an OPL VPL.
Each programming activity is composed of a model that should be
completed and two data files. One of them contains a toy instance and the
other one a realistic instance. You must create additional instances to
test your models.