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Electrical Overhaul Guide for Hydroelectric Turbine Generators
Lead Companies
CEATI International
Lead Researcher (s)
- #0385
to provide an action agenda for upcoming engineers, and the operations and maintenance personnel at all stages of condition based analysis and refurbishment.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Powerhouse Equipment
Research Sub-Category
Status
complete
Completion Date
2020
- 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
Emulating Hydropower in a Controlled Real-world Environment at ARIES for Rapid Prototyping of Next-generation Hydro-controls [HydroWIRES]
Lead Companies
NREL
Lead Researcher (s)
- Mayank Panwar, Mayank.panwar@nrel.gov
This project aims to solve the industry problem of risky, expensive, and time-consuming field validation of new hydropower governor controls by developing a controlled lab environment for evaluation. In this environment, researchers will be able to easily plug in real controller hardware to test under various grid conditions. This effort will utilize a variety of ARIES tools, including digital real-time simulation, actual hardware grid controllers, digital governors, variable speed hydro-generator, and more.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Powerhouse Equipment
Research Sub-Category
Governor
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
- 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
Environmental Decision Support: Science-Based Tools for Hydropower Stakeholder Collaboration
Lead Companies
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Lead Researcher (s)
- Esther Parish (parishes@ornl.gov)
Addressing environmental impacts while balancing multiple uses for water has been a longstanding challenge for hydropower, particularly when there is lack of access to information necessary to support decision-making. Therefore, ORNL has been working with a cross-section of hydropower stakeholders represented by members of the project’s Mission Advisory Board (MAB) and Science Advisory Board (SAB) to develop and refine an Environmental Decision Support (EDS) toolkit that can help interested users to prepare for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licensing negotiations by identifying what existing information and data are available to support environmental impact assessments, which issues have project nexus, and which environmental issues might require more discussion and/or additional research. The final EDS toolkit will include a science-based River Function Indicator (RFI) Questionnaire tool and user guide, a set of key river function and terminology definitions, the database of environmental metrics that was used to develop the list of 42 RFIs in 6 categories, and a retrospective analysis of environmental studies requested and implemented during 29 nonfederal hydropower licensing processes. The EDS toolkit will be made available to the public through DOE's HydroSource website to help stakeholders identify the key metrics of environmental sustainability for their hydropower projects so that they can work together to develop strategies that avoid, minimize, or mitigate impacts to the riverine ecosystem.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Environmental Impact
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Environmental DNA (eDNA) applications in hydropower fish passageways
Lead Companies
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Lead Researcher (s)
- Kristine Moody (moodykn@ornl.gov)
In this project, ORNL builds on their previous work examining the utility of eDNA for hydropower biological monitoring to assess the feasibility of using environmental DNA (eDNA) and RNA (eRNA) for monitoring fish passageways. eDNA and eRNA are DNA and RNA that is shed by organisms living in an ecosystem that can be found in environmental samples such as water, air, and soil and can allow for identification and relative abundance of species (eDNA) and life stage/age and whether a species is currently present in an ecosystem (eRNA). Compared with conventional biological survey methods, surveys conducted using eDNA and eRNA found in water samples can provide more complete and accurate accounts of species at lower costs and with lower personnel hazards. If eDNA and eRNA are found to be useful for monitoring fish passageways, ORNL will use the results for drafting guidance for how, when, and where the use of eDNA/eRNA to monitor fish passageways is indicated. Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
TBD
- Conventional Hydro
Environmental DNA is an effective tool to track recolonizing migratory fish following large‐scale dam removal
Lead Companies
U.S. Geological Survey
Lead Researcher (s)
- Jeffrey Duda
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is potentially a powerful tool for use in resource management, including for tracking the recolonization dynamics of fish populations. USGS and partners used eDNA to assess the effectiveness of dam removal to restore fish passage on the Elwha River in Washington State, and showed that most targeted anadromous species were able to pass upstream of both former dam sites. The timing and spatial extent of recolonization differed among species during the four years of post‐dam removal monitoring. More abundant species migrated farther into the upper portions of the watershed than less abundant species. Environmental DNA from Brook Trout, a non‐native species was detected downstream of Elwha dam but rarely upstream of the Glines Canyon Dam suggesting that the species has not expanded its range appreciably in the watershed following dam removal. We found that eDNA was an effective tool to assess the response of fish populations to large‐scale dam removal on the Elwha River.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Fish and Aquatic Resources
Status
complete
Completion Date
2020
- Conventional Hydro
Environmental, Economic and Social Trade-Offs of Hydropower Relicensing: A Case Study of the Yuba River Development Project
Lead Companies
University of California, Berkely
Lead Researcher (s)
- Joseph Rand
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Regulatory Management Process
Research Sub-Category
Environmental Impact
Status
complete
Completion Date
2018
- Conventional Hydro
Eradication of invasive quagga and zebra mussels using engineered disseminated neoplasia
Lead Companies
Bureau of Reclamation
Lead Researcher (s)
- Sherri Pucherelli
Like humans and most other animal species, marine bivalves can develop cancer. Malignant hemic neoplasia (HN) -- analogous in some ways to leukemia in humans -- is lethal to mollusks and has been studied extensively for its impact on species of commercial interest. Although HN was characterized as a pathological condition in mollusks several decades ago, it has only been revealed recently that some large-scale bivalve die-offs are caused by horizontal mollusk-to-mollusk direct transmission of cancerous HN cells referred to as disseminated neoplasia (DN). Using cutting-edge methods of cell culture, genetic engineering, and genomic modification, we propose to engineer normal quagga and zebra mussel hemocytes into "induced" DN cells (iDNCs) that can be used to transmit and foster lethal cancer into populations of these invasive species in open waters.
Technology Application
Conventional Hydro
Research Category
Environmental and Sustainability
Research Sub-Category
Fish and Aquatic Resources
Status
ongoing
Completion Date
2021
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Have questions about WaRP?
Contact Marla Barnes at: marla@hydro.org