Using industrial load flexibility to increase hydroelectric generation efficiency

Demand Side Management (DSM) as a main component of Smart Grid paradigm, provides great opportunities to increase system reliability and efficiency. This paper develops a new method to model the inherent flexibility of water pumping process in drinking water storage facilities to be used in grid balance and maximize the efficiency of hydroelectric power generation. Fluctuating nature of system demand and generation space set aside for reliability services e.g. regulation and spinning reserves reduce the hydroelectric generation efficiency. Industrial responsive loads are modelled as directly controlled assets and scheduled and dispatched in Economic Dispatch (ED) time frame to overcome this problem and minimize efficiency loss of hydroelectric plants. Real responsive load data has been used in this study and simulation results show the value of loads in improving generation efficiency.