River Flow Forecasting Breakthrough

A Hamilton-based consortium has won a $110,000 contract from Mighty River Power to forecast river flow responses to operations of their Waikato power generation control system. Dr Alastair Barnett announced that the hi-tech consortium of Barnett & MacMurray Ltd, AHHA! Software Ltd and HYDRA Software Ltd developed a world breakthrough in flow monitoring and forecasting techniques for the control of the Upper Waitaki power canals, and have now extended this for use on river-based power schemes such as the Waikato. A major Swiss consulting group has already adopted this technology after comparison with competing European and North American river flow forecasting packages.

Barnett & MacMurray have now completed in-house tests demonstrating that HYDRA’s revolutionary AULOS high accuracy flow Simulator can predict river levels 48 hours ahead for all of the major Waikato reservoirs such as Lake Karapiro, with an error of less than 10 cm under normal operating conditions.

Accompanying photo: (Left to Right) Owen Mooney, Director of AHHA! Software Ltd, Alastair Barnett, Director of HYDRA Software Ltd, and Hugh MacMurray, Director of Barnett & MacMurray Ltd.