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- Conventional Hydro
Electricity Market Design in Zero Marginal Cost Systems–Experiences and Insights for Hydropower in the United States and Norway [HydroWIRES]
Lead Companies
ANL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Audun Botterud, abotterud@anl.gov
The overall goal of this project is to provide insights to market design changes that will smoothen the transition to a decarbonized power system. To obtain these insights, this project will analyze the market design initiatives in the U.S. and Norway. Since hydropower is a likely to be a strong driver of price formation in zero marginal cost systems, the team will focus on areas with high penetrations of hydropower and renewables to identify best practices to that will guide future collaborations. The final deliverable will be a whitepaper on the efficacy of different market design measures in future decarbonized systems. This work will be pursued under the framework of DOE’s memorandum of understanding with Norway’s Royal Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Markets
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Energy Storage & International Development
Lead Companies
Carnegie Mellon University
Lead Researcher (s)
- Jesse Thornburg
Developing world microgrids often balance insufficient supply with growing, unpredictable demand. Deterministic and probabilistic simulators exist to model these microgrids, and each focuses on different technical aspects. With the addition of smart meters into microgrids, monitoring and control is now available at high granularity, which enriches microgrid planning and operation. This research is designing a new simulator to model smart microgrids with discrete probability distributions as supply and demand inputs. In our model, smart meters allow real-time power clipping for demand side management, effectively smoothing the system load curve as needed. To compare clipping schemes for grid operation and generation mixes for planning, we aggregate inputs by convolution then compute expected energy sold and probability of avoiding power cuts. The simulator plots these values for different combinations of power clipping threshold and number of customers clipped.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Renewable Integration
Status
complete
Completion Date
2018
- Pumped Storage
Energy Storage Technology and Cost Characterization Report [HydroWIRES]
Lead Companies
PNNL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Vincent Sprenkle, Vincent.sprenkle@pnnl.gov
As part of the “Valuation Guidance and Techno-Economic Studies for Pumped Storage Hydropower” project, this report defines and evaluates cost and performance parameters of six battery energy storage system (BESS) technologies and four non-BESS storage technologies. Data for combustion turbines are also presented. Cost information was procured for the most recent year for which data were available based on an extensive literature review, conversations with vendors and stakeholders, and summaries of actual costs provided from specific projects at sites across the United States. Detailed cost and performance estimates were presented for 2018 and projected out to 2025. Technology Application
Pumped Storage
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Markets
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Enhancing the representation of conventional hydropower flexibility in production cost models [HydroWIRES]
Lead Companies
PNNL, ANL, INL, ORNL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Nathalie Voisin, Nathalie.voisin@pnnl.gov
Hydropower is in high demand from a power grid coordination perspective because of its operational and economic characteristics. But production cost models (PCMs)—a tool traditionally used to plan and optimize power generation sources to meet demand within security constraints at the lowest cost—currently oversimplify hydropower operations. As part of the HydroWIRES Initiative, researchers from PNNL, ANL, and ORNL are teaming with the Center for Advanced Decision Support for Water and Environmental Systems to improve the representation of hydropower operations in PCMs across regional power grids. The PNNL-led team is leveraging large-scale, integrated water-modeling tools and unit commitment models to build a module that characterizes potential hydropower operations based on daily hydrologic conditions, regulatory water management compliance rules, and economic signals. This module, referred to as “dynamic classification” by PCM modelers, will support more robust PCM-based studies. The dynamic classification will be developed over the western United States as proof of concept. Results from this effort will guide future model development and research to improve generator fleet dispatch, scheduling, and planning, toward the goal of better co-optimizing water and energy systems. Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Hydraulic Optimization
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Exploring Multidimensional Spatial-Temporal Hydropower Operational Flexibilities by Modeling and Optimizing Water-Constrained Cascading Hydroelectric Systems [HydroWIRES]
Lead Companies
Stevens Institute of Technology
Lead Researcher (s)
- Lei Wu, lwu11@stevens.edu
One barrier to the optimal operation of hydropower plants is a lack of accurate inflow forecast information. This is true for both seasonal inflow expectations, which affects long-term planning for bulk energy production, and daily inflow expectations, which affects flexibility, and is further exacerbated in the case of cascading plants. The proposed work aims to develop: 1) accurate machine-learning based closed-loop forecast models for seasonal and day-ahead water inflows; and 2) enhanced cascading hydroelectric system (CHE) modeling and data-driven optimization approaches to explore multidimensional spatial-temporal hydropower operational flexibility potentials with proper consideration of unique characteristics of CHE systems. Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Hydraulic Forecasting
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Financial Risk from Changing Lake Levels for Hydropower Producers on the Great Lakes
Lead Companies
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Lead Researcher (s)
- Eliot Meyer
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Hydraulic Forecasting
Status
complete
Completion Date
2015
- Conventional Hydro
Forecasting Tools for Run-of-River Hydroelectric Systems
Lead Companies
University of Washington
Lead Researcher (s)
- Nam Song
With an increasing interest in constructing new run-of-the-river (ROR) hydroelectric generation over the more traditional reservoir-based hydroelectric systems, there is an increasing operational challenge due to the volatility of streamflow. The Snohomish County Public Utilities District (SnoPUD) has recently invested in the construction and operation of 3 new run-of-the-river projects in Northwestern Washington along Calligan Creek, Hancock Creek, and Youngs Creek. In order to effectively plan generation dispatch, SnoPUD has expressed interest in the development of an accurate forecasting tool to predict the generation capacity for these ROR systems. The following research project aims to use statistical learning models, namely Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), to predict day-ahead generation capacities for the aforementioned ROR systems. These models are constructed using 12 years of historical streamflow data collected at the intake sites and precipitation data recorded at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Alpine Meadows station. Four methods of constructing the models are studied for their forecast accuracies, and are compared with the persistence model. Despite using only one set of observable variables, the HMMs are shown to have slight improvements in accuracy over the persistence model approach, which shows great optimism for future work.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Hydraulic Forecasting
Status
complete
Completion Date
2018
- Conventional Hydro
GMLC 6.1.1 Flex Power
Lead Companies
Sandia National Laboratories
Lead Researcher (s)
- Felipe Wilches
Emerging hybrid renewable energy systems offer 1) new opportunities for the global renewable energy industry with disruptive market potential, and 2) a scalable, economic, and reliable solution applicable to a power system of any size (e.g., large interconnected power systems, islands, microgrids). The project will result in development of a New National Asset – a grid-scale hybrid system test bed that can be used by the industry and research community for validation and demonstration of new control concepts, stakeholder engagement, workforce education, and as a validation platform for future standardization of hybrid technologies. It will lead to both technology and vendor neutral, “plug-and-play” hybridization guidelines and control architecture openly available at all segment of stakeholder community. This project proposes a pioneering approach to demonstrate how technology hybridization can fully leverage the value of variable utility-scale wind and solar PV generation in combination with hydro power generation to take them from a simple variable-energy resources to ones that provide dispatchability, flexibility and capacity services (similar to conventional power plants) and a full range of reliability and resiliency services (similar to or better than conventional plants) to the bulk power system. The project will demonstrate the ability of hybrid plants to operate in grid-forming mode and provide reliability and resilience services (black start, islanded operation) in a multi-MW scale system.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Future Grid
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Grid and Market Integration of Hydropower and Wind Energy: Challenges and Opportunities [HydroWIRES]
Lead Companies
ANL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Audun Botterud, abotterud@anl.gov
This project seeks to build an archive of case studies documenting the co-existence of hydropower and wind turbines across the U.S. and Norway, while also investigating challenges and opportunities for hydropower resources as wind penetration increases. This work will be instrumental in identifying locations in both countries that may be prone to facing these challenges in the future. This project will increase foundational understanding of the combination of hydropower and wind turbines, in turn helping to advise future projects of this nature. This work will be pursued under the framework of DOE’s memorandum of understanding with Norway’s Royal Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Renewable Integration
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Marine Energy
Grid Value Proposition of Marine Energy
Lead Companies
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Lead Researcher (s)
- Jan Alam
PNNL and NREL are in the second year of a three-year project to comprehensively review the grid value for marine hydrokinetic development at scale on an intermediate- to long-term horizon. The project will dovetail with nationally-accelerating valuation efforts to characterize and quantify specific services from generating resources and estimate the value of those services over time. It will capitalize on the larger conversation and technical approach to establish locational value, referencing adopted frameworks and related laboratory analysis. And it will take advantage of laboratory expertise in a variety of disciplines – ocean physics, mechanical engineering , electrical engineering, energy economics – chained together in order to ensure that benefits and services assessed are realistic for MHK technologies and ocean energy resources.
Technology Application
Marine Energy
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Future Grid
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
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Have questions about WaRP?
Contact Marla Barnes at: marla@hydro.org