Simposio Internacional sobre la Calidad de la Energía Eléctrica - SICEL

Raining season in Colombia has caused negative effects on inhabitants, infrastructure and economy. Additionally, hard to predict weather phenomena such as “La Niña” have worsened the consequences of raining season. The Colombian electrical infrastructure has several hydropower reservoirs, which optimum management of resources such as minimization of water spilling and prevention of flooding downstream would decrease the negative impact of raining season on inhabitants. The aim of this paper is to describe a didactic exercise in which flood control of a hydroelectric reservoir is performed by a genetic algorithm with local search. The proposed modeling was applied to a Colombian hydropower plant during “La Niña” phenomenon. The results show the management of the hydraulic resources and the economic impact for a hydropower plant due to flood control.