Powel ASA
Trondheim, Norway
Download (PDF, 272 KB)

"ILOG CPLEX helps our customers schedule their hydro plants to earn the most during peak price periods."

Nils O. Tangvik Sales Manager/M Sc Powel ASA

Business
Powel develops software solutions and services for energy producers. The company is a leading supplier of planning tools for hydropower scheduling in Scandinavia and North America. Its systems help customers improve energy production, transmission, distribution and sales.

Goal
Power companies need to squeeze the most revenue from their plants. It�s critical that operators know exactly how much energy to produce. Fluctuating price forecasts and capacity constraints can change the equation hour by hour. Fast, accurate scheduling is vital for determining the correct amount of energy to produce at a given time.

Application
Powel�s planning and scheduling solution is based on models co-developed by the SINTEF energy research institute. Today, these solutions schedule power plants of up to 100 generators and 200 reservoirs. ILOG CPLEX calculates optimal production schedules for each generator.

Results
For small systems, ILOG CPLEX algorithms let the Powel optimizer find solutions in only one minute. Even for the largest systems, the optimizer takes no more than five minutes to find a solution (in cases that don't consider startup and shutdown costs). This high performance allows end users to run the optimizer several times a day.

Technical
Barrier algorithm allows the Powel solution to handle large problems with up to 120,000 variables and 25,000 constraints. ILOG CPLEX considers parameters that include: expected market price per hour for a period of a few days; reservoir capacity and discharge constraints; and generator startup and shutdown costs.