The figure shows the systems included in the study: Brazil, Norway, and the Colorado River System (yellow area) in the US.

Planning the use of resources for energy production, such as hydropower, is important to ensure efficient and secure access to electricity, both today and in the years to come. This is a complicated task, which is often influenced by many different factors. To gain a better understanding of this type of planning, researchers have in a new study compared the operational planning of hydropower systems in Norway, Brazil, and the Colorado River (CRS) in the US. They have used hydropower scheduling models that are used operationally in the three systems as a starting point.

Different countries and regions use a combination of different models to plan how their specific system can be operated optimally over both short periods and over a longer time horizon. These combinations of models and tools are referred to as toolchains and are often adapted to solve challenges for the specific regions.

The figure shows the toolchains for hydropower scheduling of the hydropower-based systems in Brazil, Norway, and the Colorado River in the US.

The figure shows the breakdown of how short-term (STS), medium-term (MTS), and long-term (LTS) scheduling models are organized and communicate with each other in the three classified toolchains.  

As a result of the comparison, three different toolchains operational planning were classified: Centralized (Brazil), decentralized (Norway/Nordic) and multi-purpose (CRS in the US). The comparison was also used to identify several research challenges that are common to the three systems. These are described in more detail in the published article from the study. 

The study points to several similarities between the toolchains for hydropower scheduling in Norway and Brazil, despite significant differences in market conditions. The model chain for CRS in the US, on the other hand, differs from the other two, mostly because the operational planning here considers that the water has several other uses than just energy production.