A new formulation for the stochastic control of systems with bounded state variables: An application to a single reservoir system (Q1366445)

A new formulation is presented for the analysis of reservoir systems synthesizing concepts from the traditional stochastic theory of reservoir storage, moments analysis and reliability programming. The analysis is based on the development of the first and second moments for the stochastic storage state variable. These expressions include terms for the failure probabilities (probabilities of spill or deficit) and consider the storage bounds explicitly. Using this analysis, expected values of the storage state, variances of storage, optimal release policies and failure probabilities -- useful information in the context of reservoir operations and design -- can be obtained from a nonlinear programming solution.