Performance analysis of artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm in optimizing release policy of Aswan High Dam

The paper presents a study on developing an effective reservoir operation policy by using artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm. The decision maker of a reservoir system always needs a guideline to operate the reservoir in an optimal way. Such guidelines named ‘release curves’ have developed for high-, medium-, and low-inflow category that can answer how much water needs to be released for a month by observing the reservoir level (storage condition). The Aswan High Dam of Egypt has been considered for the case study. For comparing the model efficiency, another heuristic approach—genetic algorithm (GA)—has been used. So far, GA is well established and most popular in reservoir release optimization. Historical inflow data for 18 years have been used for simulation purpose, and the general system performance-measuring indices (such as reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability) have been measured. The application procedure and problem formulation of ABC are very simple and can be used in optimizing reservoir system. After using the actual historical inflow, the release policy succeeded in meeting demand for about 98 % of the total time period. According to the simulation results, ABC algorithm showed better performance than the GA approach in reservoir release optimization.