The work is intended to be a tribute to the special professor and man who was Professor Radu Popa, who passed away far too early, and who for over 40 years cultivated aspects related to the optimization of hydropower facilities in the Department of Hydraulics, Hydraulic Machines and Environmental Engineering of the Faculty of Energy, National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest.
The book presents aspects related to the implementation of recent evolutionary algorithms for solving optimization problems in the hydropower field, namely: the firefly algorithm, the cuckoo search algorithm, the bat algorithm, the shark scent-based algorithm, the flower pollination-based algorithm.
The research included in the paper refers to some of the most important hydropower developments in our country: Vidraru, Dragan-Iad, Fântânele, Tarnița and the existing hydroelectric power plants, Mariselu and Tarnița, as well as to the analysis of the possibilities of optimal exploitation and economic performance of the extended ensemble with the Tarnița - Lapustesti pumped storage hydropower development.