Hydroelectricity for dummies :-)

1. Hydroelectricity
olivier.teytaud@inria.fr
Sandra Astete-Morales
Olivier Teytaud
Vincent Berthier
Marie-Liesse Cauwet
Nicolas Galichet
Jialin Liu
Thanks wikipedia

2. Introduction
Water helps for producing electricity.
We will see why it's excellent.
And why we need more.
And why it's hard to build more.

3. Thanks wikipedia

4. But also pumping!
Thanks gsbpower.com
Thanks mdpi.com
You can have
negative
production!
~80% efficiency!
Peak demand is
“shaved”; load
profile much
better.

5. Forecasts (IEA WEO2012)

6. “New policies scenario” for 2035 (IEA
WEO2010)

7. Hydroelectricity
● Power systems in a nutshell
● What is hydroelectricity
● Star trek version ?
● Planning

8. Power systems: key point, the
equilibrium production/demand
● Alternate current
● Constraint:
– production = demand
(frequency / phase)
– ramp constraint
– limited capacity
Thanks wikipedia

9. Power systems: who ?
● Producers
(EDF and others in France)
● Transmission system operators (buy / sell /
equilibrate (incl. locally!))
(RTE in France)
● Distribution
(ERDF in France)

10. The game of power systems: equilibrium
(production = demand, warm up cost, ramp constraints)
Actions
● Building (~ 10 years)
● Modify network topology (minutes)
● Switching on (depends on plants), modify output
● Buying (real time, and ~ days and years) (derivatives)
Random parts
● Faults (seconds and +)
● Consumption (hours and +)
● Water inflows (months and +)
● Technological breakthroughs (years and +)
● With renewable energies: wind, solar

11. Dealing with faults / equilibrium
Thanks wikipedia

12. Dealing with peaks
Thanks wikipedia

13. Dealing with overproduction
Negative prices on markets (Germany'04):
● When you have to buy renewable energies that you
don't need
● When switching off a slow plant is too expensive
Thanks energytransition.de

14. Dealing with random productions
Thanks tms.org

15. Hydroelectricity
● Power systems in a nutshell
● What is hydroelectricity
● Star trek version ?
● Planning

16. Does hydroelectricity kill people ?
Will we have hydro terrorism ?

17. Hydroelectricity
● Storage
● Daily
● Yearly
● Dealing with
● Faults
● Overproduction
● Peaks (peak shaving)
● Death
● Banqiao (~ 171 000 ?)
● Devel. countries
● CO2 ? (depends on climate)

18. Hydroelectricity is so cool!
Thanks sandia.gov

19. Hydroelectricity is so cool!
Other storages are ok for short term:
Really good
CAES...
Really exists...
Thanks renewable energies
focus handbook

20. Hydroelectricity: at the interface with
so many things
● Water temperature (also for cooling)
● Water flow (bacterias)
● Big local impact
● Tourism
● Transportation

21. Hydroelectricity
● Power systems in a nutshell
● What is hydroelectricity
● Star trek version ?
● Planning

22. Star trek version of hydroelectricity /
alternate storage
● HVDC to Scandinavia
● Batteries
● Seawater pumped storage
● Electric vehicles
Thanks wikipedia
Thanks technologyreview.com
Thanks wikipedia

23. Star trek version of hydroelectricity /
alternate storage
● Heavy trains
● Fly wheel
● H2
● New hydro (in the sea ?) Thanks sciencealert.com
Thanks technologystudent.com
Thanks lh6.ggpht.com

24. Hydroelectricity
● Power systems in a nutshell
● What is hydroelectricity
● Star trek version ?
● Planning

25. Hydro 1: planning
● Stochastic game
● State = current stock levels + forecasts
● Actions = unit commitment / dispatch / markets
==> quite a challenge.
Methods:
● Model predictive control (but: random parts!)
● Stochastic Dynamic Programming
● Reinforcement learning

26. Hydro 2: optimization
Minimize “costs”:
not convex, not concave, not linear, as a
function of power (installed or instantaneous):
● Convex term: best sites equipped first
● Concave term: economies of scale
● Nonlinear term: efficiency / MW varies

27. Conclusions 1
● Hydroelectricity <==> constraints (tourism, local
impact, irrigation...)
● Crucial ==> energy transition, excellent storage
(in particular annual; the current best overall)
● Difficult to extend
● New methods ?
● HVDC ok (also for stabilizing)
● Completely different storage (H2) ?
● Demand-side management ?
Also: water is
critical for cooling
power plants
(remember 2003!)

28. Conclusions 2
● New annual storage ? Still research. HVDC ok.
● Alternate solutions ? Smart grids, H2, electric
vehicles, frugality…. Yearly storage is hard.
● There are drawbacks, but:
● Coal kills, and there's plenty of coal
● Oil kills and generates idiots
● People don't want (?) nuclear
Thanks albawaba.com & AFP
Thanks Huffington Post

29. Bouhouhou... so much coal.
“Deregulation” ?
Thanks http://www.kr-karlovarsky.cz/ & Bradcollett