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- Conventional Hydro
Dam Safety Inspection Procedures, Guidance and Training for Plant Operators
Lead Companies
CEATI International
Lead Researcher (s)
- #0227
This Guide is intended to help hydroelectric plant operators recognize, understand, and respond to potential dam safety hazards. It includes a guidance document, customizable powerpoint files and e-learning modules.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Dam or Weir
Research Sub-Category
Dam Safety
Status
complete
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Dam Safety Maturity Matrices Version 2
Lead Companies
CEATI International
Lead Researcher (s)
- #0234
The Dam Safety Maturity Matrices Version 2 have been developed for dam owners to assess the effectiveness of their dam safety programs against industry practice. This is an update of the original DSMM created in 2015.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Dam or Weir
Research Sub-Category
Dam Safety
Status
complete
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Dam Safety Risk Management Training
Lead Companies
CEATI International
Lead Researcher (s)
- #0235
The purpose of this project is to develop and present a curriculum of courses for dam and hydropower owners on risk-informed management that meets the broad needs of owners (management and engineering staff) to implement these methods as part of their dam safety programs.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Dam or Weir
Research Sub-Category
Dam Safety
Status
complete
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Dam Safety Technology Roadmap
Lead Companies
CEATI International
Lead Researcher (s)
- #0236
This report updates the technical vision of the Dam Safety Interest Group (DSIG) and attempts to set priorities for future research programs and projects.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Dam or Weir
Research Sub-Category
Dam Safety
Status
complete
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Data-Driven Approach for Hydropower Plant Controller Prototyping using Remote Hardware-in-the-Loop (DR-HIL)
Lead Companies
NREL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Mayank Panwar, Mayank.panwar@nrel.gov
Real-time prototyping of hydropower plant controls is important for reducing the cost and the risk of field deployment. In this project, we propose to 1) collect design and operational data from actual hydro plants and 2) use a physics-informed machine learning approach for real-time emulation of hydropower plants, including the hydro turbine and hydrodynamics. The data-driven models will be interfaced with digital real-time simulation at NREL’s Flatirons campus for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing of the governor hardware device or controller-HIL (CHIL). The proposed approach will also establish the connectivity-based remote CHIL testing capability using real-time data streams from an actual hydro plant. This integrated data-driven hydro-plant emulation with CHIL will be used to prototype hydro-governor controls and, in the future, provide an opportunity to test hydropower integrated with various technologies (e.g., conventional and renewable generation, energy conversion, etc.) as HIL.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Powerhouse Equipment
Research Sub-Category
Governor
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Data-driven benchmarking models
Lead Companies
Hydropower Research Institute
Lead Researcher (s)
- HRI Technical Steering Committee
The goal of this work is to leverage HRI's aggregated data set to benchmark units or a fleet to normal operational behavior defined by the entire operational data set.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Regulatory Management Process
Research Sub-Category
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2022
- Conventional Hydro
Deep Learning for Fish Identification from Sonar Data
Lead Companies
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Lead Researcher (s)
- Daniel Deng
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Fish and Aquatic Resources
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Deployment of a floating evaporation pan on Lake Powell, UT-AZ, and Cochiti Lake, NM, to improve evaporation rate measurement accuracy and precision
Lead Companies
Bureau of Reclamation
Lead Researcher (s)
- Dagmar Llewellyn
Can deployment of the Collison Floating Evaporation Pan (CFEP) to monitor evaporation loss rates from Reclamation reservoirs improve our understanding of the available water supplies in Reclamation projects? Lake Powell evaporates around 500,000 acre-feet of water annually, based on research conducted in the early 1980's using a mass-transfer analyses and comparisons to Class A evaporation plans. The results of these older studies were used to establish coefficients that are still in use today and are in need of validation and/or refinement. This study aims to provide Reclamation a tool that can be used to refine pan coefficients and/or an alternative method for estimating reservoir evaporation rates.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Water Resources
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Deployment of daily west-wide remotely sensed reservoir evaporation application
Lead Companies
Bureau of Reclamation
Lead Researcher (s)
- Ken Nowak
Reclamation Regions, Technical Service Center, and Research and Development Office have partnered with the Desert Research Institute to develop and implement a methodology for remotely sensing daily reservoir evaporation. This product will have the ability to provide real-time, daily reservoir evaporation estimates for most, if not all Reclamation facilities. High priority reservoirs for this effort include Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Lahontan Reservoir, Stampede Reservoir, Clear Lake, Elephant Butte, and American Falls Reservoir.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Water Resources
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Design and Manufacturing Study of Hydroelectric Turbines Using Recycled and Natural Fiber Composites
Lead Companies
Oregon State University
Lead Researcher (s)
- Marc Whitehead
The objective of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility fiber-reinforced turbine components through a design and manufacturing study. The motivation for using composites is to reduce weight and simplify manufacturing especially at high production volumes. In addition, natural fiber composites are implemented for applicable components to reduce environmental impact. Existing steel designs provided by major manufacturers are used as models. These are re-designed using composite materials, maintaining original geometry as much as possible. The components selected for composite design are the turbine penstock, scroll case, guide vanes, runner (impeller) and draft tube. In addition, the design of a composite fish ladder is presented to show the application of composites to other elements of hydroelectric power. Once the structural and mechanical design was complete, material and manufacturing costs were analyzed. The choice of materials was based upon loading requirements, the runner required a high strength random reinforcement carbon fiber sheet molding compound (SMC) while a glass fabric and rovings provided adequate strength for the guide vanes, scroll case, penstock and outer walls of the fish ladder while minimizing the cost. A flax fabric was selected for the design of the draft tube additionally using a bio-based PLA resin. The inner sections of the fish ladder use a flax fabric and polypropylene pultrusion. Manufacturing methods for each were selected based on geometry and cost. The complex shape of the runner was most easily formed using compression molding, which also reduced the cost as compared to hand lay up. A comparison between hand lay up and vacuum infusion was completed for the guide vanes and scroll case. Hand lay up was chosen for the draft tube as it is the most commercially proven method for the manufacture of components using natural fibers. Filament winding, the method used for the penstock would be the ideal method of manufacture but it has yet to be completed in a commercial setting with natural fibers. Results show the cost of most parts is dominated by tooling (molds) for the components as the research focused on a small run of ten parts, assumed to be for research and testing purposes. However, the contribution of tooling can be cut in half if the run size is doubled. The design and manufacturing analysis does support the use of composite materials in hydroelectric turbines and the costs associated with their manufacture are within reasonable parameters for industry.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Powerhouse Equipment
Research Sub-Category
Turbine
Status
complete
Completion Date
2013
Don’t see your waterpower research?
Have questions about WaRP?
Contact Marla Barnes at: marla@hydro.org