Simulation Studies of Adaptive Predictive Control for Small Hydro Power Plant

Small hydro power is one of the most important renewable energy in the world. It does not encounter the problem of population displacement and is not as expensive as solar or wind energy. However, small hydro electrical generating units are usually isolated from the grid network; thus, they require control to maintain of constant the power for any working conditions. This paper presents a flow control approach for the speed control of hydro turbines. Power can be controlled by controlling the amount volume of water running into turbine. In this study, the adaptive predictive control is designed to control a flow for the automatic control of small hydro power plants. The standard Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) algorithm is presented. The Adaptive Generalized Predictive Control is then applied to achieve set point tracking of the output of the plant. A Single Input Single Output (SISO) model is used for control purposes. The model parameters are estimated on-line using an identification algorithm based on Recursive Least Squares (RLS) method. The performance of the proposed controller is illustrated by a simulation example of Small hydro power plant. Obtained results have shown better characteristics concerning both set point tracking and disturbance robustness for adaptive predictive control.