Engineering topics

Curd, Shelaine L.

Publications and source records attributed to Curd, Shelaine L..

8 records

DOE OSTI2020

Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH) FAST Commissioning Prize Technical Analysis

The US energy landscape has undergone major changes over the past 10 years and will continue to see significant changes in future decades as the power grid increases its reliance on variable renewable energy resources. Because of the inherent variability of these resources, renewable energy growth may require additional energy storage capacity to provide flexible load-following capabilities and other grid services that can quickly adjust to changes in energy demand and generation. Pumped storage hydropower (PSH)—one such energy storage technology—uses pumps to convey water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir for energy storage and releases water back to the lower reservoir via a powerhouse for hydropower generation. PSH facility pump and generation cycling often follows economic and energy demand conditions. Across the United States, 43 PSH facilities are in operation and 55 projects are in various permitting or licensing stages. Altogether, the 43 operational projects provide the wide majority (95%) of utility-scale electricity storage in the United States. These facilities also provide significant power and nonpower grid benefits, including large-scale electrical system reserve capacity, grid reliability support, and electricity supply-demand balancing through quick-response capabilities and operational flexibility. PSH systems can accomplish these at a scale (e.g., size) and cost that makes these systems highly attractive from a technical standpoint. Although these research concepts are still in their infancy, they demonstrate promising potential as future PSH energy storage technologies. Although PSH has many advantages, development in the United States has effectively stalled since the 1990s, partially because of the magnitude of project costs and financing interest during development and construction, the length of time from project investment until project revenue begins, permitting challenges, construction risks, competition from other storage technologies (e.g., batteries, hydrogen storage), and electricity market evolution and uncertainty. In short, the time, cost, and risk associated with modern PSH development have resulted in limited growth in the United States recently, despite the growing energy storage demand stemming from increased wind and solar power deployment. Technology innovation is needed to help reduce PSH commissioning time, cost, and risk, particularly during the post-licensing phase of project development. To address challenges facing the PSH industry and to improve PSH commissioning timelines, the US Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) initiated the PSH Furthering Advancements to Shorten Time to (FAST) Commissioning Prize project.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2019

A Checklist of River Function Indicators for hydropower ecological assessment

Hydropower generation has benefits for societies that seek low-carbon, renewable energy alternatives, but sustainable hydropower production will require an explicit consideration of potential tradeoffs between socioeconomic and environmental priorities. These tradeoffs are typically explored during a formal environmental impact assessment process that can be complex and controversial. The steps taken to address stakeholder concerns through impact hypotheses and field studies are not always transparent. We have designed a Checklist of River Function Indicators to facilitate stakeholder discussions during hydropower licensing and to support more transparent, holistic, and scientifically informed hydropower environmental analyses. Based on a database of environmental metrics collected from hydropower project studies documented by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the International Hydropower Association, the Low Impact Hydropower Institute, and peer-reviewed scientific literature, our proposed Checklist of River Function Indicators contains 51 indicators in six categories. We have tested the usefulness of the Indicators by applying them to seven hydropower projects documented by FERC. Among the case study projects, 44 of the 51 Indicators were assessed according to the FERC documentation. Although each hydropower project presents unique natural resource issues and stakeholder priorities, the proposed Indicators can provide a transparent starting point for stakeholder discussions about which ecological impacts should be considered in hydropower planning and relicensing assessments.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2019

Instruction Manual: River Function Questionnaire

The River Function Questionnaire (Questionnaire) is a series of questions designed to help stakeholders determine the impacts of hydropower on a series of environmental indicators, i.e. river functions, that may need to be understood or addressed through additional field studies or environmental assessments. In order to provide a platform accessible to many users, the questionnaire was developed in Microsoft Excel with convenient macro-enabled interactive features. The Questionnaire was developed under the Department of Energy (DOE)-funded Environmental Metrics for Hydropower (EMH) project in FY 2018. This document provides an instruction manual that provides overall guidance and step-by-step instructions for use.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2019

HydroSource Data Dictionary

In recent years, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has conducted innovative hydropower research sponsored by the US Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) to address important questions regarding technology advancement, existing hydropower assets, future hydropower potential, environmental concerns, policy and regulatory decisions, and market trends to support hydropower sustainability in the United States. Data from this research supports a broad and diverse user base including US federal, state, and local governments; national laboratories; hydropower industry; academia; nonprofit organizations; and other end users. The development of a relational database system is needed to ensure proper management of the continuously increasing breadth and depth of these data to guarantee their future value and reliability for advancing hydropower research and supporting the goals and objectives of our partners and US hydropower stakeholders. During FY 2018, ORNL’s HydroSource team reconciled data from ORNL’s WPTO-funded projects to create the HydroSource Data Model, Version 1 (HSDM1) schema. The HSDM1 schema provides the essential step in data assimilation toward unifying ORNL’s WPTO-funded data into a relational database management system. This report provides technical documentation of the HSDM1 schema to help guide future development and implementation of the HydroSource database system.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2019

Review of environmental metrics used across multiple sectors and geographies to evaluate the effects of hydropower development

In this paper, as U.S. hydropower development continues to expand, a thorough inventory of potentially relevant environmental metrics will provide a comprehensive and transparent starting point for stakeholders seeking to evaluate the sustainability and environmental effects of this anticipated expansion. To address this need, we conducted a literature review to extract and analyze a swath of environmental metrics related to previous hydropower projects. Our examination of several U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licensing documents, several certification documents prepared by the Low Impact Hydropower Institute and the International Hydropower Association, and a set of peer-reviewed journal articles led to creation of a database of > 3000 current environmental metrics related to hydropower projects in 231 locations worldwide. Information recorded for each environmental metric was used to map the comprehensiveness and consistency of environmental measurements gathered across primary categories, dam life cycle stages, spatial scales and locations. We found that a majority of environmental metrics were related to water quantity and water quality, a large number of metrics were related to biota and biodiversity, and relatively few metrics were related to the categories of geomorphology, land cover, connectivity and fragmentation, and infrastructure and design. However, the categories of environmental metrics represented in each type of literature varied significantly. Forty-five subcategories of environmental metrics emerged from our analysis, thereby suggesting a potential envelope of environmental measurements that might be used to improve efficiency in evaluating the potential environmental effects of new U.S. hydropower projects.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2018

Catalog of Environmental Metrics for Hydropower

Evaluating the sustainability of new U.S. hydropower development will necessitate an approach that is comprehensive, transparent and consistent. The ORNL Environmental Metrics for Hydropower (EMH) project team addressed this need by conducting a literature review to extract and analyze a swath of environmental metrics related to hydropower projects. The assessed documents included peer-reviewed journal articles, U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission licensing documents, and two sets of certification documents from the Low Impact Hydropower Institute and the International Hydropower Association. Review of 117 documents led to creation of a database of > 3000 current environmental metrics related to hydropower projects in 285 locations worldwide. Information recorded for each environmental metric was used to map the comprehensiveness of environmental measurement types gathered across primary categories, dam life cycle stages, spatial scales and locations. A majority of metrics were related to water quantity and water quality, a large number of metrics were related to biota and biodiversity, and relatively few metrics were related to the categories of geomorphology, land cover, connectivity and fragmentation, and infrastructure and design. Forty-five subcategories of environmental metrics emerged from our analysis, thereby suggesting an envelope of measurements that are important for understanding the environmental effects of new hydropower projects. The categories and subcategories of environmental metrics represented in each type of literature varied, however. The EMH database summarized in this Catalog will be used to inform stakeholder selection of appropriate environmental metrics for evaluating progress toward collective goals for new U.S. hydropower development.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2017

A Multi-Year Plan for Research, Development, and Prototype Testing of Standard Modular Hydropower Technology

The Multi-Year Plan for Research, Development, and Prototype Testing of Standard Modular Hydropower Technology (MYRP) presents a strategy for specifying, designing, testing, and demonstrating the efficacy of standard modular hydropower (SMH) as an environmentally compatible and cost-optimized renewable electricity generation technology. The MYRP provides the context, background, and vision for testing the SMH hypothesis: if standardization, modularity, and preservation of stream functionality become essential and fully realized features of hydropower technology, project design, and regulatory processes, they will enable previously unrealized levels of new project development with increased acceptance, reduced costs, increased predictability of outcomes, and increased value to stakeholders. To achieve success in this effort, the MYRP outlines a framework of stakeholder-validated criteria, models, design tools, testing facilities, and assessment protocols that will facilitate the development of next-generation hydropower technologies.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2017

Exemplary Design Envelope Specification for Standard Modular Hydropower Technology

Hydropower is an established, affordable renewable energy generation technology supplying nearly 18% of the electricity consumed globally. A hydropower facility interacts continuously with the surrounding water resource environment, causing alterations of varying magnitude in the natural flow of water, energy, fish, sediment, and recreation upstream and downstream. A universal challenge in facility design is balancing the extraction of useful energy and power system services from a stream with the need to maintain ecosystem processes and natural environmental function. On one hand, hydroelectric power is a carbon-free, renewable, and flexible asset to the power system. On the other, the disruption of longitudinal connectivity and the artificial barrier to aquatic movement created by hydraulic structures can produce negative impacts that stress fresh water environments. The growing need for carbon-free, reliable, efficient distributed energy sources suggests there is significant potential for hydropower projects that can deploy with low installed costs, enhanced ecosystem service offerings, and minimal disruptions of the stream environment.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗