RESERVOIR OPERATIONAL PLANNING FOR MELKA WAKANA HYDROPOWER SCHEME

Abstract

Energy demand is greatly increasing in the country. Developing hydropower plants to satisfy the energy demand needs due attention .The newly planed and existing hydropower plants have to be used effectively. One way of using waterpower plants effectively is managing the water reservoir in the way that the maximum possible energy can be generated. In this study Melka Wakana Reservoir is Modeled by HEC-5 Reservoir Simulation Model. The necessary hydro-meteorological data have been collected and analyzed. The reservoir evaporation has been estimated using Aerodynamic and Pan Evaporation methods. The correlation between annual runoff data, from gauging stations on the main river, and annual areal rainfall has tested using regression analysis. Monthly runoff data (reservoir inflow) of 36 years has been prepared and used during reservoir simulation by HEC-5 model. The model has been calibrated and verified before detail simulation done in this study. In order to get the initial guide curve one of optimization techniques, Dynamic Programming, has been used. This initial curve has been used as starting guide curve during detail reservoir simulation using monthly reservoir