Seite - 416 - in Book of Full Papers - Symposium Hydro Engineering

Talsim-NG has a proven track-record for being able to accurately simulate a wide range of different reservoirs and can consider all important aspects of reservoir operation simulation, including e.g. hydraulic constraints of turbines or other release openings. It also has the ability to accurately compute evaporation and precipitation onto the reservoir surface and incorporates a sophisticated algorithm for calculating the reservoir’s water balance, even when multiple variable inflows and outflows are involved. Additionally, the rainfall-runoff and flood routing modules make it possible to simulate not only the reservoir itself, but also catchments and water courses. Thus, the simulation engine is capable of simulating any existing, planned or fictional reservoir or even entire reservoir systems, including the catchments and water courses upstream and downstream of the reservoirs. It can utilize archived or real-time monitoring data from ground stations or remote sensing as input and can also integrate forecasts into the simulation. Using Talsim-NG, it is possible to simulate the entire range of possible operating conditions, including exceptional events such as extreme rainfall or failure of control components. ROPES distinguishes between the internal time step used for the actual simulation by Talsim-NG and the external, or operating time step which is the interval in which results and current conditions are displayed to the trainee and in which the trainee can make inputs. The internal time step depends on the system being simulated and on the temporal resolution of the input variables. The operating time step is adjusted to reflect the normal operating interval of the system being simulated. For example, if a reservoir operator usually makes operating decisions once a day, the operating time step is also set to one day. After each operating time step, the simulation is paused in order to await the decisions made by the trainee. The simulator then takes the trainee’s decisions as input and calculates the effects of the decisions within the entire system during the next operating time step. Then, the interface is updated to reflect the new system state, and the simulation is paused again to await the trainee’s decisions for the next operating time step. When a simulation scenario includes situations in which the operator receives false or no readings from a malfunctioning instrument, the values displayed in the interface may deviate from the actual values used in the simulation or may be missing entirely from the interface. Similarly, the inputs made by the trainee can be configured to cause unexpected effects in order to simulate malfunctioning controls, e.g. a gate that will not open or close properly. All decisions made by the trainee as well as all of the system variables, whether visible to the trainee or not, are recorded over the entire course of the simulation and output to result files so that it is possible to review the trainee’s decisions and the effects that they had on the system after the simulation has ended. 416