Skip to content

How to Model a Release Limit Plan

Release limits provide a method to impose monthly and annual limits for one or more operating rules. This capability has generic applications but was developed for the Colorado River Basin where Green Mountain Reservoir and other reservoirs releases to Historic Users during a substitution year are limited by 66,000 acre-feet per year.

  1. Open the network (*.net) in StateDMI, navigate to the appropriate location, and right-click to Add an Upstream Location. Enter the appropriate location and structure information and designate the structure type as a plan.
    • Note that because this is a Type 12 plan, the location does not need to be site specific.
  2. Recreate the river network file (*.rin) to reflect the additional structure.
  3. In the plan file (*.pln), include the release limit plan as a Type 12 Plan and include the appropriate parameter information. See Section 4 for more discussion on the information in and format of this file.
  4. In the operating rule (*.opr) file, include a Release Limit Operating Rule (Type 47) to define the monthly and annual limits of the release limit plan.
    • The administration date is generally set to very senior.
    • The source is the release limit plan; the destination is not defined (NA).
    • Define the month when the operational limits are reset.
    • If only an annual limit is needed, the monthly limits should equal the annual limits.
  5. In the operating rule (*.opr) file, include the operating rule ID of the Type 47 in reservoir release or plan release operating rules. The inclusion of this rule, along with the appropriate operating limit (OprLimit) field, will limit the combined releases from these rules to the monthly and annual limits in the Type 47 rule.
    • The Direct Plan/Reservoir Release Operating Rule (Type 27) and the Exchange Plan/Release Operating Rule (Type 28) currently have the most enhanced functionality to work with the release limit operations. See Section 4 for more information on incorporating the limit into these rules.
    • Release limit operations are also often used with the Replace Reservoir Operating Rule (Type 10). As outlined in Section 4, this rule does not release to a carrier therefore, the Type 27, 28, and 10 rules are often used together to impose a total release limit.
  6. Review the plan summary (*.xpl) file, operating rule summary (*.xop), and reservoir summary (*.xre) file for release amounts associated with each operating rule; the accumulation of the releases as compared to the limit amount; and the portion of the limit, if any, that was unused.