Hydropower
Research
Existing Hydropower
Technology
New Hydropower Technology and
Development
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ORNL Contributes to Second SECURE Water Act Report to Congress
Analyzes Impact of Climate Change on Federal Hydropower
Scientists within ORNL’s Energy-Water Resource Systems team and Climate Chance Science Institute provided key data to the 2017 DOE SECURE Water Act Section 9505 Report to Congress. The findings indicate a need to allocate water use more cautiously in response to the trend of earlier snowmelt and change in runoff seasonality. ORNL researchers provided metrics on historic hydrologic observations and hydropower facility characteristics to support model development, calibration, and verification.
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DOE releases Hydropower Vision
Powering the next century and beyond
Oak Ridge National Laboratory supported the Department of Energy’s Wind and Water Power Technologies Office (WWPTO) development of Hydropower Vision effort by leading and participating on task forces to produce report content and support modeling and impact analysis on hydropower vision scenarios and provide communication support for presentations and external materials. Specifically, ORNL led the Technology, Project Development, O&M and Performance Optimization, and Markets Task Forces and participate on multiple additional task forces.
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Standard Modular Hydropower (SMH)
Sustaining the power of the stream
The Department of Energy (DOE) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are laying the groundwork for a community of resource stewardship and development with a shared understanding of how small-scale, low-impact, and low-cost hydroelectric energy production can be compatible with and even enhance the existing uses and functions of natural streams. The Standard Modular Hydropower (SMH) project contemplates future hydropower facilities as integrated combinations of standard and validated modules, each with a primary objective, multiple functional requirements, and multiple design constraints.
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Environmental Metrics for Hydropower
Developing metrics for measuring the environmental impact of hydropower
The Environmental Metrics for Hydropower research effort will yield a suite of candidate metrics for evaluating environmental effects of hydropower development that are grounded and current in scientific literature, actionable by decision-makers, and understandable by public and private stakeholders. The metrics will be supported by a formal set of terms that foster clear communication among diverse stakeholders.
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IMPROVED PROCESS FOR NEW HYDROPOWER
SYNCHRONIZING THE FERC-USACE PROCESS FOR AUTHORIZING NON-FEDERAL HYDROPOWER PROJECTS
The Department of Energy (DOE) has identified significant potential for new hydropower at U.S. Army Corps of Engineer dams that are currently non-powered. Adding power to these dams requires completing three regulatory processes shared between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and USACE. It is the intent of FERC and USACE to coordinate their regulatory responsibilities with the goal of reducing redundancy in this process, increasing efficiency, and decreasing process time. FERC and USACE have released a Factsheet detailing the results.
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It is Hydropower’s TIME
TIME Magazine feature on the anticipated hydropower growth
Energy experts say that new ways of thinking about hydropower has placed the energy source on the verge of a resurgence in the U.S.. Hydropower production is anticipated to grow by more than 5% in 2016 alone.
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Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle for the Department of Energy