Contribution of weather radar data to hydropower generation

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Weather Radar and Hydrology
(Proceedings of a symposium held in Exeter, UK, April 2011) (IAHS Publ. 351, 2012), 574-580
Contribution of weather radar data to hydropower generation
optimization for the Rhone River (France)
BENJAMIN GRAFF1, DOMINIQUE FAURE2, GUILLAUME BONTRON1 &
SEBASTIEN LEGRAND1
1 Compagnie Nationale du Rhône, 2, rue André Bonin, 69316 Lyon Cedex 04, France
[email protected]
2 Alicime, 14 rue du Docteur Bordier, 38100 Grenoble, France
Abstract CNR operates 19 hydropower plants all along the Rhone River in France. To forecast hydropower
generation and to ensure the security of people and plants, CNR has developed hydrometeorological forecasting
tools, rainfall–runoff modelling and propagation models, for the Rhone River and some of its main tributaries.
With the assistance of Alicime, CNR achieved an application named AEGIR to integrate radar QPE into its
hydrometeorological forecasting process. AEGIR allows CNR: to assess spatial rainfall pattern and rainfall
variability in time and space over the Rhone River basin; to compare radar QPE and observed raingauge
measurements; to forecast rainfall hyetograph for each sub-basin of the Rhone River. The paper focuses on the
contribution of radar QPE regarding CNR’s purposes, by analysing the quality of observed and forecasted radar
quantitative estimates over the Rhone River basin, and finally assessing the operational use of radar QPE as an
input into pre-existent rainfall–runoff models.
Key words weather radar; QPE; rainfall–runoff forecasting; Rhone River; hydropower generation