The Short-term Optimal Scheduling For Cascade Hydropower Stations

China's power industry is moving to the market mechanism. The short-term optimal scheduling for cascade hydropower stations (cascade scheduling) is an important thesis of economic operating of cascade hydropower stations under the electricity market. How to get the optimal scheduling, as an NP-hard problem, has not been perfect solved. Meanwhile, the traditional scheduling models no longer meet the current electricity market requirements, but need to suggest a new scheduling model to satisfy the changes in electricity market, and maximize the benefits of the power stations. Because of the complicated model, all present algorithms have the disadvantage. There is a certain need for a high performance algorithm.Set the three hydropower stations in low water seasons for solution, which based on the Lancang River cascade hydropower stations daily optimal scheduling. Give a complete cascade scheduling model. Use the rising algorithm named Ant Colony System (ACS), design city matrix of the cascade scheduling, transfer the model into the form of ACS. To deal with the dynamic city matrix of solution, increase the limit rules of the city matrix, and improve the pheromone updating mechanism and ants visiting methods. Finally, test the ACS parameters in detail to determine the optimum parameters, solve the cascade scheduling model successfully.Program of this paper is using C++ language. Simulation results show that ACS can effectively solve the cascade scheduling problem, with high quality, fast speed, and strong adaptability.The experiment show that optimal scheduling results is excellent, and give a new approach to the short-term optimal scheduling of the cascade hydropower stations on generating, optimizing and improve.