Abstract:The market clearing problem needs to add more discrete variables due to the characteristics of optimal dispatch model of cascaded hydropower station with vibration area, time delay and nonlinearity. At the same time, the hydraulic and power coupling constraints are complex, which makes the calculation time significantly increased so as to difficultly meet the actual requirements. Firstly, a market clearing model considering hydropower coupling constraints is formulated. Secondly, for a large number of discrete variables of vibration area in hydropower coupling constraints, and based on the basin relationship and membership relationship of power plants, the variables and constraints related to the vibration area are compressed. Finally, based on the actual power grid data, an example analysis is carried out, and the results show that the proposed spot market clearing model and variable dimension reduction method can effectively reduce the market clearing time, and meet the actual operation demand of spot market.