| Small hydropower project developers across the United States have found interconnection procedures to be fraught with cost surprises and schedule overruns. System operators have struggled to understand impacts to overburdened or rapidly evolving transmission and distribution grids. The results have been stranded costs and unrealized small hydropower potential. Though regulatory actions and policy recommendations at the state level have increased the situational awareness, the remote nature of the small hydropower resource remains a fundamental challenge for interconnections. WPTO has tasked PNNL and ORNL with performing a Small Hydro Interconnections benchmark analysis to develop a clear characterization of the specific challenges and barriers developers face in the interconnection process, both as general overall challenges and challenges specific to hydro unit types/uses and utility being interconnected to (e.g., cooperative, municipal, IOU). |
