Overview

The goal of the Hydropower Operations & Planning Interest Group is to develop and make available cost-effective water management expertise, tools, and leading-edge technology through collaboration across a wide community of knowledgeable members including utilities, independent power producers, government and other agencies.

Focus areas

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    Meteorology & Hydrology
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    Data Acquisition, Validation & Dissemination
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    Water Management
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    Hydropower Planning and Scheduling
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This group is for

Operations managers, planning and scheduling managers, optimization managers, hydrologists, and energy planning analysts
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Technical Advisor Support
Charles Bach
Charles Bach
Hydropower Operations and Planning

Charles Bach received his bachelor’s degree in Atmospheric Sciences & Mathematics from SUNY Albany, and his master’s degree in Meteorology from Florida State University. He worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority 36 years. He was also the Project Manager for an environmental impact statement for a fossil plant and upgrades to TVA’s aeration equipment. Mr. Bach is currently the President of Big Red Water Management Consultants, providing water management services to national and international customers. Mr. Bach has been involved with the CEATI Hydro Program since 2004, helping to lead and direct several initiatives, such as the Hydro Operations and Planning Benchmark and the Dissolved Oxygen Working Group.

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Marcel Paul Raymond
Marcel Paul Raymond
Hydropower Operations and Planning

Marcel Paul Raymond holds a master’s degree in Computer Science and Operations Research from the University of Montreal and has 32 years of experience at Hydro-Québec. He has been actively involved in planning the operations of the utility’s system of generation, transmission, and interconnection. He has gained international recognition by managing projects in Brazil, USA, Poland, and Russia. After his retirement from Hydro-Québec in 2009, Mr. Raymond became an energy consultant. His services as an expert have been used in many documents presented before the Quebec Energy Board. In addition, he has been consulted on matters related to the hydroelectric projects of Lower Churchill in Labrador and Three Gorges in China.

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Top Resources
BENCHMARKING TOOL
Benchmarking Water Management Business Process
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The Hydropower Operations and Planning Business Process Benchmarking Survey quantitatively measures the nature of and the effort expended in key areas of the hydropower operations and planning business process. Results are displayed in such a manner as to provide easy means to compare results against peer organizations. This tool can help utility participants identify the factors most important for improving overall performance and initiate and sustain the process of change essential for continuous quality improvement. In addition, it prioritizes for the decision-maker where an investment of resources will have the greatest impact on improving performance.
TOOLKIT
Streamflow Assessment Toolkit for Changing Conditions
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This project develops a unified approach to analyzing climate change effects on streamflow. The investigators consider six streamflow analysis use-cases, provided by hydropower utilities, and analyze them by using a toolkit developed in the context of this project. Each use-case has been addressed using state-of-the-art methods, relying on a thorough review of the available scientific literature. The developed toolkit enables users to deploy these methods and to assess their results via ergonomic dashboards. The toolkit includes a report presenting the methods that have been implemented, the options available in the toolkit, and a user guide.
COMPETITION REPORT
Competition for Emerging Inflow Forecast Technologies
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In 2020–2021, CEATI hosted the Competition for Emerging Inflow Forecast Technologies to compare and evaluate streamflow forecasts from multiple providers. Spanning 19 sites across North America with diverse hydrologic conditions, the year-long contest required vendors to submit daily forecasts, which were assessed against observed flows using various metrics, time frames, and flow ranges. Final scores were calculated in November 2021 across five performance categories.
RESEARCH REPORT
Getting Paid for Hydro Transformation
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This research project investigates and summarizes existing market compensation structures for various grid services that hydropower provides, and may increasingly provide, under high penetration of variable energy resources. Investigators developed a gap analysis in market structure for those services and synthesized the opportunities for hydropower asset owners, considering the technology-specific capabilities and temporal scales associated with the services and their values across markets. The report provides hydropower asset owners with information to estimate the value of their hydropower resources in providing these market services. Approaches to influence or guide development of market compensation for grid services that hydropower provides are also discussed.
BENCHMARKING TOOL
Outage Planning Maturity Matrix (OPMM) – Methods & Processes for Minimizing Monetary Impacts from Outages
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A maturity matrix is a self-assessment tool for benchmarking program activities against regulations, standards, and best practices. The Outage Planning Maturity Matrix (OPMM) evaluates all aspects of outage planning—from scheduling and impact forecasting to post-outage analysis and organizational communication. By using the OPMM, utilities can reduce outage costs, improve reliability, establish effective performance measures, and strengthen coordination across operations, maintenance, and management.