ADVANCED COMPUTATIONAL EVALUATION OF WATER RESOURCES FOR OPTIMAL SELECTION OF MINIHYDRAULIC POWER STATIONS

摘要

This paper presents the methodology developed within a main research project (supported with funds of the Spanish Government and the European Union) in order to obtain maps of water resources with geographic high resolution, in the region of La Rioja, Spain, and its utilisation (as renewable source) for electric energy generation from minihydraulic run-of-river power stations. The main objectives are to provide a geographical cover of data associated with the studied riverbeds of a region and, afterwards, to select automatically the optimal locations and sizes of minihydraulic power stations from the economic and geographic points of view. The manipulation of the geographic characteristics, the strongly geographic dependency of the results and its integration in the regional optimal planning of renewable and nonrenewable power resources (final target of the mentioned research project) lead to the implementation of new evaluation models of hydraulic power resources and their optimisation within a platform of a Geographical Information System (GIS). The research project has also provided new and original advanced tools on GIS, necessary for a global planning of energy resources, power technologies and power infrastructures for the mentioned region.