Hydroelectric Power-Plant Simulator Implemented in Python

Design of a hydroelectric power-plant simulator and its implementation in Python are presented. The simulator is aimed as a supportive tool for PID parameter pre-tuning for the vital power-plant regimes. Typically, the pre-tuned parameters are to be used as starting values at the physical control system within its installation phase. The simulator can also be used for testing the control system performance at the safety-critical regimes. The simulator core is formed by a low-parameter dynamical model, which is parameterized based on power-plant dimension and available experimental data. For the simulator implementation, Python programming language is used due to its enhanced readability and suitability for rapid prototyping. Runge-Kutta numerical implementation of model parts is formed as compact Python functions. These are embedded and called within the simulation part of the whole program, which also handles smooth transients at switching of the regimes. The simulator performance is validated on available process data.