Authors: T. Olason, R. B. Allen, S. G. Bridgeman, A. MacKenzie
Abstract
The Vista Decision Support System is being implemented to schedule hydroelectric generation at Nova Scotia Power Incorporated (NSPI). Vista, which was developed by Acres International Ltd., is a comprehensive tool for optimum scheduling of generation and transactions and includes a number of modules. The LT Vista module is for long-term scheduling of water releases, using weekly and monthly time steps over a one to two year scheduling horizon. ST Vista is used for hourly scheduling of generation for up to two weeks. Inflow Vista is for forecasting hourly inflows and for generating extended long-term inflow forecasts. Data Vista is the repository of all static data, and RT Data Vista is for accessing and processing real-time data, including SCADA data, meteorological and hydrometric data.
NSPI has 35 hydro plants on 16 river systems in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada with a total installed capacity of 400 MW. The LT and ST Vista modules are described and the implementation of Vista to guide the operations of the NSPI hydroelectric system is presented.
