Development of mathematical models for the forecast and evaluation of the performance of hydropower using transfer function modelling

Poor, inefficient and negligence in the evaluation of the performance of a hydropower plant is the root cause of reduced and inefficient power generation, high maintenance costs and replacement or repairs of machines. With the government’s focus on installing and developing new and better renewable sources of energy, it is also necessary to maintain the existing hydropower projects in order to get efficient power from them. Growth of 2.3% annually between the years 1990 to 2017 indicates the importance of hydropower amongst all other energy sources. Thus, this research aims to assess the performance of Indira Sagar Project (ISP) which is an existing hydropower plant during different years of its working and to forecast the power which may get produced, for known values of inputs like discharge provided to the turbines and previous values of output i.e. power generated, using transfer function modelling. The results of this study indicate that the performance of ISP was found to be worst during the financial year 2013-14 where the performance coefficient was -0.0007 and it is inferred that maintenance of the machines was required during that period. This study will help in assessing the performance and scheduling the maintenance of different units. With, the R2 value 0.997 and Chi2 0.02013 the transfer function model developed to forecast the power, suggests that the model fits well and can be used to forecast the hydropower at ISP.