Defining optimal production capacity in a purely hydroelectric power system

摘要

The conventional definition of system and plant firm capacity, in a thermally dominated power system, is often simply the installed MW adjusted by plant availability. A hydro dominated system requires an entirely different and expanded definition due to the complex interactions resulting from temporal reservoir operational decisions. In this paper several economic definitions of capacity are presented and analyzed based on the need for this concept in the operation and expansion of hydro dominated systems.