Joint Optimization Potential Analysis in Yalong River and the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Jinsha River, China

The main and tributary streams of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River are the strategic water source for China’s water resource allocation and a important hydropower base for the West-to-east electricity transmission project. There are plenty of controlled reservoir planed and constructed in the basin, and the pattern of large-scale mixed reservoirs(LSMR) across the basin is gradually taking shape. With the coordinated efforts to champion environmental protection and eschew large-scale development on the Yangtze Economic Belt, the question of how to make full use of the existing reservoir group pattern, further optimize water resource allocation, and deepen the potential of joint optimization has become the hydropower development direction of the Yangtze River and even China in the future. Firstly, this paper systematically sorts out the hydropower development in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. Aiming at the key scientific issues faced by the joint optimization of LSMR, this paper takes the middle reaches of the Jinsha River(MJR), lower reaches of the Jinsha River(LJR), and the Yalong River(YR) as the study area, and introducs LSDC-DDDP hybrid optimization method to solve the issues. The results reveals that the joint optimization of LSMR has great potential, the total power generation of MJR, LJR and YR increases 2.8% compared with the individual optimization of each reservoir, and the average annual power generation reaches 13.319 billion kWh, which is equivalent to save 5.33 million tons of standard coal per year and reduce 13.28 million tons of carbon dioxide. In addition, the power generation by joint optimization of MJR and LJR is greater than that of YR and LJR, showing the great significance to explore the joint optimization mode of middle and lower reaches of the Jinsha River at this stage.