Asset Management Improvement Research

Principal Investigator: Dr. Brennan T. Smith

Participating staff: Dr. Kyutae Lee, Mark Christian, Steven Signore

Project start date: FY2014

Project end date: Ongoing

The provenance of decisions about operational changes and technology adoption is an important concept in hydropower asset management. Provenance is more than a rationale, theory, or empirical data alone underpinning a decision. The provenance of asset management decisions includes (a) monitoring and data acquisition (including cost and workflow data) enabling modeling and analysis, (b) modeling and analysis informing qualified and quantified rationale for decisions, (c) rational decisions to initiate process improvements, operational changes, or adoption of new technologies, (d) process improvements, operational changes, and new technology adoption effecting changes to the reliability, sustainability, and economics of hydropower assets and their value streams, and (e) measurement and monitoring of outcomes to confirm the effectiveness of process improvements, operational changes, and new technology adoption. This provenance is less than complete within hydropower asset management practices at electric utilities, such that ineffectual investments in assets and technology, along with undesirable outcomes, do occur amidst successes. This lack of completeness also limits the usefulness of information, analyses, and outcomes for future asset management decisions. While provenance of good (and bad) decisions is important for all hydropower asset managers, it is crucial for operations and maintenance (O&M;) value and efficiency in the fleet context, in which multiple hydroelectric units and facilities share identical or similar hydraulic, mechanical, and electrical design features. The hydroelectric facilities maintained by federal operators (Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and Tennessee Valley Authority) are examples of the fleet context. This effort by ORNL and its partners identifies and prioritizes gaps in this asset management decision-making provenance, demonstrates new practices in asset management to address those gaps, and disseminates those practices to asset managers.

Significance

• Advance new hydropower systems and/or components for demonstration or deployment
• Optimize existing hydropower technology, flexibility, and/or operation

Annual Hydropower Market and Trends Report

Principal Investigator: Dr. Rocio Uria Martinez

Participating staff: Patrick O’Connor, Megan Johnson

Project start date: FY2014

Project end date: Ongoing

The Annual Hydropower Market and Trends Report (HMR) will provide data on the hydropower fleet, development activity, supply chain, and hydropower performance with a breadth and depth that no other public source currently offers. This report will make comprehensive, objective, accurate information about hydropower industry and market trends accessible to a wide audience. It will provide metrics that help DOE and industry evaluate progress toward strategic goals for the growth, performance, and reliability of the US hydropower fleet. Engagement with partners that will be information sources and/or users of the report will be a valuable component of the overall project, since it will identify both data gaps and effective ways of analyzing and presenting existing information.

Significance

• Optimize existing hydropower technology, flexibility and/or operations by improving understanding of current hydropower utilization patterns and uncovering opportunities for improvement
• Reduce deployment barriers and environmental impacts of hydropower computing attrition rate of projects throughout the development process and investigating its causes will inform policymakers on key barriers that need to be addressed to promote hydropower’s growth

Biological Design Tools for New Hydropower Turbines

Principal Investigator: Dr. Mark S. Bevelhimer and Dr. Brenda Pracheil

Participating staff:

Project start date: FY2013

Project end date: Ongoing

Hydropower is being scrutinized intensely by regulatory agencies, environmental groups, and other stakeholders because of potential environmental impacts of new or refurbished hydro-turbines. A prominent environmental concern is biological performance, i.e., injury or mortality to fish during passage through turbines. Understanding biological performance requires understanding both the physical environment in the turbine and how those conditions affect fish.

Objective: is to define and predict the response of a variety of fish species to turbine passage in order to make the evaluation of existing turbines more efficient and less costly and to inform the design of new turbines to achieve better fish passage. Specific objectives are to provide:

1. A national assessment of the nature of fish passage issues in the U.S. (i.e., geographic distribution and species of concern) that can be used to direct turbine research and development, and
2. The interpretation of physical characteristics of new turbines (as revealed by sensor fish data and CFD model predictions) in terms of the biological criteria for fish passage survival.

Significance

Outputs from the BioPA tools will facilitate rapid comparison of turbine design options by the manufacturer, owner, and the regulatory community to advance turbine design options that improve environmental performance while maintaining or improving power/efficiency. The ultimate outcome is reduced design costs and acceleration of permitting processes by incorporating environmental concerns early and consistently in the design phase. The SF Application will provide industry and regulators a scientifically-sound analytical tool set based on SF data to evaluate biological performance of existing, refurbished, or newly installed conventional hydro-turbines nationwide where fish passage is a regulatory concern. Cost savings could be substantial because biological performance evaluations using SF are expected to be less costly than evaluations using live fish, the traditional evaluation approach.

Industry Partners: Pacific Northwest Laboratory

Cost Data Collection & Modeling for Hydropower

Principal Investigator: Patrick O’Connor

Participating staff: Connor Waldoch

Project start date: FY2014

Project end date: Ongoing

The Hydropower Cost Model Development and Analysis project encompasses the data collection, modeling, and analysis of the costs and performance of hydropower plants in U.S. markets. The objective is to allow for an evaluation of contemporary hydropower project cost and performance with the primary goal of informing hydropower R&D; priorities, with important but secondary benefits from providing industry with screening-level validated costing and performance evaluation tools.

Significance

• Advance new hydropower systems and/or components for demonstration or deployment
• Optimize existing hydropower technology, flexibility, and/or operations
• Reduce deployment barriers and environmental impacts of hydropower

Facilitating Regulatory Process Improvements (Federal Interagency Collaborative)

Principal Investigator: Shelaine Curd

Project start date: FY2014

Project end date: Ongoing

Via the Federal Inland Hydropower Working Group meetings, opportunities to improve coordination and address inconsistencies between the FERC licensing process and the Corps of Engineers 408 permit process have been highlighted. The Corps and FERC requested that the Department of Energy’s Water Power Program act as an interested but neutral intermediary for facilitation of discussion on development of an addendum to the existing FERC/Corps MOU.

Significance

Improved coordination and efficiency in the application and approval processes for FERC licensing and Corps permitting will lower development and compliance costs, reduce uncertainty, and reduce time to commissioning for non-federal hydropower producers at Corps facilities.

Industry Partners:Kearns & West

International Collaboration

Principal Investigator: Dr. Brennan Smith

Participating staff: Dr. Boualem Hadjerioua

Project start date: FY2014

Project end date: Ongoing

ORNL engages in international collaboration to enhance the breadth and depth of scientific and technical research for the Water Power Program. That engagement occurs in three major forums:

1. The International Energy Agency (IEA) Implementing Agreement for Hydropower Programs and Technologies (IAHTP)
2. The Centre for Energy Advancement through Technological Innovation (CEATI)
3. The Electric Utility Cost Group Hydroelectric Productivity Committee (EUCG-HPC)

Each of these forums includes hydropower interests from outside of the United States and provides access to more science, technology, or policy information and perspectives than are available solely from U.S. federal or non-federal hydropower stakeholders. The IAHTP is chartered by the IEA, an inter-governmental organization with 28 member countries including the United States. The U.S. Department of Energy designates representatives (delegates) to the IEA implementing agreements, working groups, and implementing agreement annexes. CEATI and EUCG are electric power industry consortia that include electric utilities and other industry participants from multiple continents. The common theme of ORNL and, by extension, DOE participation in these forums is that DOE-funded hydropower research outcomes are shared with and vetted by forum members, while DOE Water Power Program participants gain access to research from the international and U.S. participants in these forums.

Significance

• Advance new hydropower systems and/or components for demonstration or deployment
• Optimize existing hydropower technology, flexibility, and/or operations
• Enable next generation pumped storage technologies to facilitate renewable integration
• Reduce deployment barriers and environmental impacts of hydropower

National Hydropower Asset Assessment Program (NHAAP)

Principal Investigator: Dr. Shih-Chieh Kao

Participating staff: Nicole Samu

Project start date: FY2010

Project end date: Ongoing

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) National Hydropower Asset Assessment Program (NHAAP) is an integrated energy, water, and ecosystem research and geospatial data integration effort for efficient, sustainable, and environmentally friendly hydroelectricity generation and water management. Our partners include state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, technology and resource developers, utilities, and researchers. NHAAP is sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

Project website: http://nhaap.ornl.gov/

Significance

• Advance new hydropower systems and/or components for demonstration or deployment
• Reduce deployment barriers and environmental impacts of hydropower

Industry Partners:For a complete listing please visit: http://nhaap.ornl.gov/

Publications: For a complete listing please visit: http://nhaap.ornl.gov/

9505/Water Use Analysis

Principal Investigator: Dr. Shih-Chieh Kao

Participating staff: Dr. Bibi Naz

Project start date: FY2014

Project end date: Ongoing

The objective of this project is to produce an assessment of the effects of climate change on water availability for federal hydropower and on marketing of hydropower by the federal Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs), as required under the SECURE Water Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-11). The results of this assessment will be documented in an ORNL technical manual and summarized in a report to Congress that is due at the end of March 2016. The Secretary of Energy is designated as the lead for this assessment, and it is to be conducted in consultation with the PMAs and other federal and state agencies. ORNL will provide project leadership and secure additional support via subcontracts, as needed. The end-users of information are congressional members and their staffs, the PMAs and their customers, federal hydropower owners/operators, and the DOE Water Power Technologies Office.

This work will produce new understanding of future hydroelectric generation from federal facilities, which currently account for approximately half of the installed hydropower capacity in the US. Surface water is the “fuel” on which hydropower is based, and that resource may be affected by climate change, as well as other competing water uses. Understanding the role of climate variability and change is an essential part of managing the water power portfolio of the US; therefore, this project is directly aligned with the program goal of increasing the energy benefits of water power. The first assessment under Section 9505 of the SECURE Water Act was completed in September 2011. Congress required that these assessments be conducted every five years and be based on "the best available scientific information."

Significance

• Optimize existing hydropower technology, flexibility, and/or operations
• Reduce deployment barriers and environmental impacts of hydropower

Publications:

• Published two reports: (1) 9505 Assessment Report and (2) 9505 Report to Congress