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- Conventional Hydro
Hydropower’s Contributions to Grid Reliability and Resilience
Lead Companies
NREL, PNNL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Josh Novacheck
The U.S. electricity system is critical infrastructure that supports the economy, public safety, and national security. Although the U.S. power grid is very reliable according to standard metrics, there is an increased interest in resilience—the grid’s ability to respond to and recover from high-impact, low-probability events. These range from natural events, such as hurricanes, to human-related events, such as cyber and physical attacks. The impacts on system operations, and hence the responses needed by the system, can vary in magnitude, intensity, duration, and geography depending on characteristics of the extreme event. Hydropower facilities are often crucial in responding to these extreme grid events due to their agility and flexibility. They can quickly change both their real and reactive power outputs, and they are well-suited to provide voltage support, inertial response, primary frequency response, spinning, and operating reserves. Readily available conversion of stored energy—water stored behind dams—and low station power requirements make them ideal for black start restoration of the grid. Additionally, hydropower presently constitutes the power system’s largest portion of long-duration energy storage, which can act as a buffer during extended-duration system outages. However, no standard practices presently exist to quantify the contributions of hydropower resources and their attributes and response characteristics, especially for non-market and non-monetized grid services such as voltage support and inertial and frequency responses.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Research Sub-Category
Future Grid
Status
complete
Completion Date
2021
- Conventional Hydro
HydroSource
Lead Companies
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Lead Researcher (s)
- Debjani Singh (debd@ornl.gov)
The HydroSource digital platform consists of hydropower related datasets, data model, visualizations and analytics tools that supports and enables hydropower research and development on topics of national interest such as U.S. hydropower market acceleration, deployment, resources assessment and characterization, environmental impact reduction, technology-to-market activities, and climate change impact assessment. It is used by hydropower operators and developers, government (federal agencies, resource agencies, and decision-makers at federal, state and local jurisdictions), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academia, policy leaders, and the public to inform policy decisions. The HydroSource project is an ongoing effort dedicated to improving the quality, functionality, dissemination and sharing of detailed and scientific hydropower data. It provides up-to-date information and reliable technical and analytical support for efficient, sustainable US hydropower generation and water management Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Research Sub-Category
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
HydroWIRES Collaborative
Lead Companies
PNNL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Alison Colotelo
The HydroWIRES (Water Innovation for a Resilient Electricity System) portfolio is organized into four interrelated research areas: 1) Value under Evolving System Conditions, 2) Capabilities and Constraints, 3) Operations and Planning, and 4) Technology Innovation. The mission of HydroWIRES (https://energy.gov/hydrowires) is to understand, enable, and improve hydropower’s contributions to reliability, resilience, and integration in a rapidly evolving electricity system. The initiative includes five national laboratories, PNNL brings expertise in valuation, market analysis, and grid integration and environmental performance of hydropower. Specifically, how hydropower capabilities contribute to the future grid and the capabilities and constraints of hydropower operations.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Renewable Integration
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Ice Loads on Dams – Investigation of Available Updates
Lead Companies
CEATI International
Lead Researcher (s)
- #0247
To produce a set of three reports investigating extreme ice loads, ice loads on piers/spillways/gates/stoplogs, and ice impact loads.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Dam or Weir
Research Sub-Category
Dam Safety
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
Expected 2021
- Conventional Hydro
Identification of spatial and topographical metrics for micro hydropower applications in irrigation infrastructure
Lead Companies
Colorado State University
Lead Researcher (s)
- Brian Campbell
A recent agreement between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the State of Colorado seeks to streamline regulatory review of small, low-head hydropower (micro hydropower) projects located in constrained waterways, (Governor’s Energy Office, 2010). This regulatory change will likely encourage the development of micro hydropower projects, primarily as upgrades to existing infrastructure. Previous studies of low-head hydropower projects have estimated the combined capacity of micro hydro projects in Colorado between 664 MW to 5,003 MW (Connor, A.M., et al. 1998; Hall, D.G., et al. 2004, 2006). However, these studies did not include existing hydraulic structures in irrigation canals as possible hydropower sites. A Colorado Department of Agriculture study (Applegate Group, 2011) identified existing infrastructure categories for low head hydropower development in irrigation systems, which included diversion structures, line chutes, vertical drops, pipelines, check structures and reservoir outlets. However, an accurate assessment of hydropower capacity from existing infrastructures could not be determined due to low survey responses from irrigation water districts. The current study represents the first step in a comprehensive field study to quantify the type and quantity of irrigation infrastructure for potential upgrade to support micro hydropower production. Field surveys were conducted at approximately 230 sites in 6 of Colorado’s 7 hydrographic divisions at existing hydraulic control structures. The United States Bureau of Reclamation contributed approximately 330 additional sample sites from the 17 western states. The work presented here describes a novel method of identifying geospatial metrics to support an estimation of total site count and resource availability of potential micro hydropower. The proposed technique is general in nature and could be utilized to assess micro hydropower resources in any region.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Hydraulic Forecasting
Status
complete
Completion Date
2012
- Conventional Hydro
Identifying Hydropower Operational Flexibilities in Presence of Streamflow and Net Load Uncertainty [HydroWIRES]
Lead Companies
University of California, Irvine
Lead Researcher (s)
- Soroosh Sorooshian, Soroosh@uci.edu
Hydropower plants have been traditionally designed and used for base-load bulk energy production, but technological developments and changes to grid needs are making flexible operation more prevalent. Still, hydropower’s flexibility capabilities and constraints are not well understood. The goal of this project is to develop an accurate model representation of hydropower operations that allows for a detailed specification of various constraints and captures the underlying uncertainty from both inflows and net load. Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Future Grid
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Identifying Sources of Uncertainy in Flood Frequency Analysis
Lead Companies
Bureau of Reclamation
Lead Researcher (s)
- Amanda Stone
We postulate that true FFA uncertainty may be larger than currently appreciated and that different components of the modeling chain such as model choice, parameter values or initial conditions impact FFAs by different amounts. We propose to explore key components of the modeling chain: 1) expanding from one model to a multi-model ensemble, 2) varying model parameters, and 3) varying initial conditions for each model structure. Furthermore, uncertainty and sensitivity characteristics likely vary across hydroclimatic regime. To address this hypothesis, we will use continuous ensemble simulations across model structures with parameter perturbations to drive a stochastic event simulation framework to reveal true FFA uncertainty and understand sensitivities across several case-study basins spanning the hydroloclimatology of the 17 western states.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Hydraulic Forecasting
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Impacts of Grade Control Structure Installations on Hydrology and Sediment Transport as an Adaptive Management Strategy
Lead Companies
Bureau of Reclamation
Lead Researcher (s)
- Deborah Tosline
What are the impacts of Grade Control Structures (GCSs) installed in ephemeral drainages on storm flows, local hydrology, soil moisture, and sediment transport and do GCSs reduce sediment deposition in reservoirs, enhance local water resources, reduce stream velocities, support ecosystems and optimize watershed function?
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Water Resources
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Improvement in the accuracy and speed of riparian vegetation simulation
Lead Companies
Bureau of Reclamation
Lead Researcher (s)
- Jianchun Victor Huang
The proposed research aims to develop a reach scale numerical model to simulate long-term vegetation establishment, growth, and desiccation while avoiding the limitation of the 1D model that can only represent the vegetation at limited locations. The model will bridge the gap between a 1D numerical model that is over simplified to cover a reach as long as 100 miles over decades and a vegetation map that needs detailed information regarding each vegetation zone.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Shoreline and Riparian Resources
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Improving distributed hydrologic models using multiscale thermal infrared, near infrared, and visible imagery from sUAS and satellite-based sensors
Lead Companies
Bureau of Reclamation
Lead Researcher (s)
- Lindsay Bearup
Can the use of sUAS combined with satellite data effectively improve calibration of distributed hydrologic models? Previous work has focused on developing techniques to control variables such as evapotranspiration using satellite remote sensing. The critical component is the equilibrium surface temperature which is normally calibrated using thermal remote sensing data from MODIS (MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) or AATSR (Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer) which have a 1 km ground sample distance. This study seeks to improve thermal calibration techniques using much finer-resolution thermal measurements derived from a sUAS. The use of a sUAS will allow for the collection of high resolution imagery (< 1 cm – 1 m or more depending upon research goals) of landscape components, repeatedly and during desired time frames. Thermal data from a sUAS will provide much greater spatial and temporal resolution than satellite-based measurements, and will be obtained at a relatively low cost. This study seeks to determine the added benefit of improved spatial and temporal resolution of observations, evaluated through the existing model calibration framework of a sub-daily, sub-kilometer hydrologic model with complex terrain and vegetation, typical of many mountain headwaters systems experiencing change in the West.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Interconnect Integration and Markets
Research Sub-Category
Hydraulic Forecasting
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2020
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Have questions about WaRP?
Contact Marla Barnes at: marla@hydro.org