Model-free based water level control for hydroelectric power plants

Cédric Join (1, 2) , Gérard Robert (3) , Michel Fliess (1, 4)

1 ALIEN - Algebra for Digital Identification and Estimation
2 CRAN - Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy
3 Technolac - Savoie Technolac
4 LIX - Laboratoire d'informatique de l'École polytechnique [Palaiseau]

Automatic water level control methods for open channels have difficulties to keep good performances for a large range of flow and significant unknown disturbances. A new concept called "model-free control" is applied in this paper for hydroelectric run-of-the river power plants. To modulate power generation, a level trajectory is planned for cascaded power plants. Numerous dynamic simulations show that with a simple and robust control algorithm, the set-point is followed even in severe operating conditions.

Mots clés: Hydroelectric power plants; channels; water level; model-free control; intelligent PI controllers; numerical differentiation of noisy signals

Domaines: Automatique; Optimisation et contrôle [math.OC]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]; Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]

Cédric Join, Gérard Robert, Michel Fliess. Model-free based water level control for hydroelectric power plants. IFAC Conference on Control Methodologies and Tecnologies for Energy Efficiency, CMTEE, IFAC, 2010, Vilamoura, Portugal. pp.CDROM. ⟨inria-00458042⟩