45-Mile Hydroelectric Power Project

Principal Investigator: Dr. Boualem Hadjerioua

Project start date: FY2012

Project end date: Ongoing

Installation of a hydropower facility on the existing 45-Mile main canal system, a Bureau of Reclamation site, will directly address the goal of the Department of Energy’s Advanced Hydroelectric Development Program by investigating hydropower technologies and innovative construction techniques as an attractive cost effective electricity production option for the 21st century by increasing electricity generation without additional environmental effects at existing infrastructure.

Significance

The objective of this project is to examine the feasibility and implementation of a small-scale hydropower turbine/generator (about 3 MW) at one of the Reclamation sites to generate electricity from a Reclamation irrigation canal. This project will also provide Reclamation with the opportunity to be a partner during the implementation phase. Lastly, this project will provide a setting for testing and advancement of small-scale hydroelectric turbines technologies.

Industry Partners:Earth By Design.

Modular Pumped Storage – Hydropower (PSH) and Economic Analysis

Principal Investigator:Dr. Boualem Hadjerioua

Project start date: FY2014

Project end date: Ongoing

To date, the vast majority of global and domestic Pumped Storage Hydro (PSH) development has focused on the construction of large (generally greater than 300MW), site-customized plants. The viability of alternative design paradigms for PSH technologies has been actively discussed in industry and the research community, but not reliable determinations have been made. Of particular interest is the development of smaller distributed PSH systems incorporating elements of modular design to drive down cost. Small modular PSH could present a significant avenue to cost-competitiveness through direct cost reductions (requiring R&D;), and by avoiding many of the major barriers facing large conventional designs such as access to capital, the long, uncertain licensing process, and the suppression of market prices (and subsequently revenues) caused by adding utility-scale storage to grid. These distributed modular units would typically serve large commercial and industrial loads in regions with adequate topography.

Significance

The objective of this project is to analytically determine the technological feasibility and potential economic viability of modularizing the design of PSH units.

Industry Partners: Knight Piesold Consulting; MWH Global Inc.

Water Quality Modeling Improvements (Columbia/Cumberland River Basins)

Principal Investigator: Dr. Boualem Hadjerioua

Participating staff: Connor Waldoch

Project start date: FY2014

Project end date: Ongoing

This project is a collaboration between DOE/ORNL, the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation under the federal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Hydropower, with collaboration from the university of Iowa, and Vanderbilt University. The research effort is to develop the capability to co-optimize (or jointly simulate and schedule) reservoir releases in river systems with multipurpose water resource objectives. Specifically, the research will develop and demonstrate the ability to include spatially and temporally explicit water quality targets, such as Water temperature, Dissolved oxygen (DO), and Total Dissolved Gas (TDG) in multi-reservoir water management scheduling that includes hydropower production. Predictive equations will be developed to be included in the hydropower operational scheduling tool to optimize generation while minimizing environmental impacts downstream of hydropower dams.

Significance

The objective of the research is produce a set of equations that would be embedded in the hydropower scheduling framework to help hydropower operators schedule their river system to meet the water quality parameter requirement and maximize power generation. The first application and testing of this research is to assist the COE Nashville District and CADWES with the implementation and testing of the developed equations in their hydropower scheduling tools for the Cumberland River and Mid-Columbia River systems, respectively.

Industry Partner: CADWES, Vanderbilt University