By Edith A. Zagona and Timothy M. Magee
Published in Waterpower '99, Proceedings of the International Conference on Hydropower, Las Vegas, NV, July 1999

Abstract: RiverWare is a river basin modeling tool that provides flexibility to model a range of timesteps with multiple solvers including simulation, rulebased simulation and optimization. RiverWare also provides a selection of methods for modeling physical processes. RiverWare's basic structure and solution approaches are described. RiverWare provides various hydropower modeling capabilities to effectively represent hydropower objectives in a broad range of operating and planning models. Several methods of modeling hydropower in simulation include simple equations for the entire plant, a peak/base method for longer timesteps, a detailed plant characteristics method and a method for modeling each individual generator. The economic value of hydropower is calculated in terms of the thermal replacement value in a thermal-hydro power mix. For optimization, hydropower linearization techniques are described, as well as an economic objective to maximize the thermal replacement value of hydropower, trading off the current value of generation against the future value of generation.