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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

INTEGRATION OF CONDUIT HYDROPOWER AND BATTERIES INTO IRRIGATION INFRASTRUCTURE

Irrigation districts, ditch companies, and other agricultural water providers across the West operate and maintain canals, ditches, and reservoirs that store and deliver water for agricultural production, municipal needs, and other purposes. Co-locating energy generation and storage with this infrastructure provides opportunities to improve resilience and reduce energy costs. This memo discusses two case studies of co-located infrastructure and their contexts. The first case study discusses the development of an integrated microgrid, hydropower, solar, and battery storage project in North Unit Irrigation District (NUID) in Oregon. The second case study discusses the development of a battery storage project in Tulelake Irrigation District (TID) in northern California. Together, these two projects demonstrate the potential for co-located energy and water infrastructure.

13 - HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Hydroboost

HydroBoost is the most realistic revenue optimization tool for the hybridization of hydropower and battery energy storage systems to date. The innovative representation of how operators actually schedule hydropower in practice results in more realistic predictions of revenue and operations. Unlike other optimization tools, HydroBoost generates forecast energy prices with uncertainty to use in the optimization. This allows HydroBoost to give users a range of potential revenue with an upper bound using the perfect foresight pricing and a lower bound using a naive persistence forecast model. Additional forecast can be generated and used in the optimization, such as additive models, random forest, and neural networks to give further insight into potential revenue. HydroBoost has been designed to be applicable for both run-of-river and reservoir storage sites. The primary focus is on the day-ahead market and requires year-long data with an hour time-step. All time-series input and constraints are contained in an Excel worksheet for convince. The user will run the forecasting generation first with a Python script to give the optimization model the necessary requirements. Next the optimization is ran using Julia and results are generated and stored into a directory as csv files. HydroBoost includes an additional module to generate figures based on the results of the optimization simulation. The results help analyze the results and users to draw insights into how the hydro and battery systems are operated and the revenue each is producing. Additionally, the difference between the perfect foresight model and models that include forecast can easily be inspected.

Phillips, TylerB. [Idaho National Laboratory (INL)↗
DOE OSTI2025

Data Integration and Visualization for Enhanced Resilience and Sustainability in Hydropower (DIVERS-H)

U.S. hydropower plants face potential threats from shrinking water supply, rising demands, and warmer stream temperatures from various causes. Power plant owners, operators, and regulators require new tools to take advantage of and interpret the diverse range of scientific data being produced by both observational methods (for example, satellite, radar, stream gauges) and computer modeling methods that evaluate and predict how earth's dynamic systems (atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and sea ice) are changing and interacting. Combining datasets such as these with AI-based analyses introduces a novel decision support system to help users anticipate and address potential impacts on power generation stations. This new technology has been named DIVERS-H for "Data Integration and Visualization for Enhanced Resilience and Sustainability in Hydropower." In Phase I, technical feasibility was established with the development and demonstration of all the new technologies that are required. Most notably, DIVERS-H will use new artificial intelligence (AI) methods to capture the complex dynamics of water availability, demand, and environmental changes. In addition, new data management software was developed, and a prototype user interface was implemented as the precursor to a full scale decision support system. With technical research complete, the project focus now shifts to development of a commercial software product to provide users with actionable insight into water availability and the risk/resilience of critical systems at their locations of interest. Although DIVER-H was originally conceived as a tool for hydroelectric power applications, the same underlying technology can be readily applied to other water-consuming systems including coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear power plants.

Chaudhary, Aashish [Kitware, Inc., Clifton Park, N↗
DOE OSTI2026

Evaluating the Impacts of Coordination for Cascaded Hydropower Plants on the Mid-Columbia

The Mid-Columbia region in the U.S. Pacific Northwest includes seven large, cascaded hydropower plants with a combined nameplate capacity of nearly 14 GW. These plants have several different operators, and there is currently limited coordination among the operators. We develop a detailed model of the Mid-Columbia system that captures both river flow constraints and power system operations. We then place this detailed model within a production cost model of a 2030 system of the Western Interconnection to evaluate how coordination of the Mid-Columbia hydropower plants might impact operations throughout the interconnection. We find that coordination of the Mid-Columbia plants leads to more generation from the Mid-Columbia plants and increased revenues for the Mid-Columbia operators. This benefit is achieved primarily through better utilization of the storage reservoirs and decreased spill through the cascade. We also evaluate the impacts of look-ahead on production costs and find that longer look-ahead values result in lower system-wide production costs.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2024

Multitemporal landslide inventory and susceptibility map for the Arun River Basin, Nepal

The transboundary Arun River Basin (ARB) spreads across Nepal and Tibet. Nearly 95% of the basin lies in Tibet through which the Pumqu River flows, forming the Arun River once it enters Nepal. The ARB has five large hydropower projects undergoing construction or planned for the future. Rainfall and earthquake-induced landslides, landslide dammed lakes and landslide-induced glacial lake outburst floods pose major risks to smooth operation of these projects. To safeguard upcoming hydropower projects, areas susceptible to landslides in the ARB must be identified. We used high-resolution satellite imagery and open-source tools to generate a multitemporal landslide inventory for the basin. The rigorously quality-controlled inventory represents a yearly record of landslides from 2011 to 2020. A data-driven approach was used to map areas susceptible to landslides within the ARB. The multitemporal landslide inventory combined with other readily available Earth observation-based variables were used to create a landslide susceptibility map. The susceptibility analysis provides a valuable initial estimate of where landslides are likely to initiate. These landslide products could form the basis of more comprehensive local studies to inform hydropower project development.

Arun River Basin↗
DOE OSTI2024

Impact of Hydrological Data on Power System Operational Studies: Preprint

Hydropower is expected to play an important role in maintaining grid reliability and flexibility as the share of of variable renewable energy increases. While the current hydropower operational models have been studied and used widely, they haven't been updated for decades to meet new performance standards. For example, current steady state and dynamic models often neglect hydrological conditions, which may lead to unrealistic expectations when relying on hydropower for energy and ancillary services. To study this impact, a multi-timescale hydrological model was created by leveraging the National Renewable Energy Laboratory-developed Multi-timescale Integrated Dynamics and Scheduling (MIDAS) tool. Using MIDAS, we compare the impact of considering hydrological conditions in a day-ahead unit commitment (DAUC) schedule on the reduced 240-bus Western Interconnect (WI) test system under winter and summer case studies. We show that neglecting current hydrological conditions of hydropower plants in power system models can lead to an overestimation of hydropower capabilities, which could lead to power balancing issues. For example, power system DAUC simulation results of our reduced test system show that in the case where hydrological conditions are not considered in the model, an approximate 31% overestimation of hydropower capabilities occurs in the summer case and approximately 60% occurs in the winter case compared to what is available. Additionally, results show an underestimation of WI day-ahead power system generation costs by approximately $54M - $80M in the weekly summer scenario and $116M - $126M in the weekly winter scenario. This analysis helps to underscore the importance of considering hydrological data in power system operational studies.

ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY,HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Potential Effects of Climate Change and Solar Radiation Modification on Renewable Energy Resources

Solar radiation modification (SRM) is a possible deliberate approach to decrease or reflect incoming solar radiation with the goal of reducing global temperatures, which have increased over the last decades due to high atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Stratospheric aerosol injection, specifically, has shown potential for successfully reducing global temperatures in climate model simulations. Despite the growing literature in the areas of climate change and SRM, their combined effects on renewable energy generation, a climate change mitigation strategy, have not been addressed. In this review paper, we synthesize previous literature on the possible effects of climate change and SRM on renewable energy resources (i.e., wind energy, solar energy, biomass energy, and hydropower), review the status of climate change and SRM research, and explore potential effects of SRM on renewable energy primarily in the Continental United States (CONUS), but with global perspectives as well. We discuss the research challenges and impacts of SRM on renewable energy and conclude by discussing the potential implications of SRM for renewables for SRM governance and policy. This work is not advocating for or against SRM. It is highlighting an important potential impact for future decision makers.

Kumler, Andrew [National Renewable Energy Laborato↗
DOE OSTI2026

Optimisation of the Kaplan hydropower system via PID 2 and digital twin

Here, this paper proposes a proportional–integral-double–derivative (PID 2 ) optimisation method for the Kaplan hydropower system by building a digital twin. The study first uses one multilayer perceptron (MLP) to model the hydroturbine dynamic and then adopts three connected MLPs to model the generator dynamic, both in an open-loop fashion. Inspired by stochastic distribution control (SDC) theory, we regard the training of the turbine's neural network model as a process control problem, and we propose minimising entropy loss to update the network parameters. The next step is to build the digital twin by connecting the neural network models with a PID 2 controller and a lead-lag exciter and run the whole model in a closed-loop fashion. After that, a binary search approach is applied to optimise the PID 2 parameters based on the obtained digital twin model. The simulation results show that the proposed method can reduce the mean square tracking error by more than 90%. Furthermore, the method is extended to jointly optimise the PID 2 controller and excitation system gains through multiobjective optimisation, leveraging Pareto frontier analysis to balance active power and voltage tracking performance. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method, achieving a 83.46% reduction in relative mean square error of active power, a 47.13% reduction in terminal voltage tracking error, and an 82.78% improvement in the overall scalarized objective.

Hydropower system↗
DOE OSTI2024

Enhancing Grid Resilience during Wildfires in Socioeconomic Vulnerable Regions using Powered and Non-Powered Hydro Dams

In many regions around the world, wildfires have become a growing threat, exacerbated by factors such as climate change, droughts, and urban sprawl. These wildfires often wreak havoc on power infrastructure, leading to extended power outages, which can have devastating consequences for communities, especially in socioeconomically vulnerable areas. Ensuring grid resiliency in the face of these challenges is of paramount importance. One innovative approach to mitigating the impact of wildfires on the power grid is the utilization of hydropower facilities including both powered and non-powered hydro dams. While powered hydro dams along with additional infrastructure like energy storage and solar photovoltaic can provide resilience during wildfire-related outages, non-powered dams, originally constructed for purposes other than electricity generation, also offer a unique opportunity to bolster grid resilience. In this paper, we aim to explore the efficacy of hydro-dams in general to provide resiliency during wildfire-induced outages.

Wildfires, Resilience, Grid Resiliency, Hydropower↗
DOE OSTI2025

CRiSPPy: An advanced hydropower scheduling tool for the Colorado River Storage Project

The Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) plays a vital role in delivering reliable and cost-effective hydroelectric power to millions of customers across the western United States. The Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP) carries out WAPA’s mission in Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming and Texas. Achieving this mission requires effective management of the Colorado River system, and depends on the use of advanced analytical tools and modeling methodologies. For many years, CRSP has relied on the Generation and Transmission Maximization Superlite (GTMax SL) model for its mid-term and long-term hydroscheduling needs. However, the evolving energy market, power system operations, environmental rules, and hydrology conditions, coupled with advancements in computational capabilities, have necessitated the development of a more modern and robust solution. This report introduces the Colorado River Storage Project Python-based (CRiSPPy) model, a new, advanced hydropower scheduling tool developed to address CRSP ever-evolving challenges. CRiSPPy represents a significant leap forward in our ability to model and optimize the operation of the Colorado River system. It incorporates state-of-the-art optimization algorithms, enhanced data management capabilities, and an advanced graphical user interface, providing WAPA CRSP personnel with unprecedented insights and decision-making support. This document details the development, capabilities, and implementation of CRiSPPy. It is intended to serve as a comprehensive resource for WAPA staff, stakeholders, and anyone interested in the future of hydropower scheduling in the Colorado River Basin. We are confident that CRiSPPy will enhance WAPA's mission while adapting to the challenges of a dynamic and increasingly complex environment. The version of CRiSPPy described in this report is the version 2.3. New versions of CRiSPPy will be developed as the tool keeps evolving to address CRSP challenges.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Annual Technology Baseline: The 2024 Electricity Update

Consistent cost and performance data for various electricity generation technologies can be difficult to find and may change frequently for certain technologies. With the Annual Technology Baseline (ATB), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory annually provides an organized and centralized set of such cost and performance data. The ATB uses the best information from the Department of Energy national laboratories' energy analysts. The ATB has been reviewed by experts and it includes the following electricity generation and storage technologies: land-based wind, offshore wind, distributed wind, utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV), commercial-scale solar PV, residential-scale solar PV, concentrating solar power, geothermal power, hydropower, utility-scale battery storage, commercial battery storage, residential battery storage, pumped storage hydropower, nuclear, coal, and natural gas. EIA data for conventional biopower are included for reference. This webinar presentation introduces the 2024 update to the ATB Electricity data and documentation.

battery storage↗
DOE OSTI2026

PSH Assessment and Site Identification [Slides]

NLR's Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH) geospatial and cost model algorithms are applied to the Chemehuevi Reservation to assess the potential for PSH within the reservation. The algorithm identifies both "open-loop" PSH opportunities formed by constructing a new reservoir within the reservation paired with bordering Lake Havasu and "closed-loop" systems formed by two new reservoirs within the reservation. Options range from 28 to 538 MW of electrical generation power at maximum generation and 10 hours of storage. CAPEX is estimates as 4422 2022 $\$$/kW of generating power, which is meaningfully higher than the lowest cost systems identified in NLR's national scale assessments. Further economic analysis is needed to fully evaluate whether this would be an attractive option to meet the Chemehuevi Reservation's goals.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Framework for Addressing Hydropower Modeling Gaps in Electric Grid Planning and Operational Studies [Slides]

Realistic representation of hydropower in power system planning and operation studies is extremely important as it helps in avoiding under/over-estimation of the services the hydro power units can provide. A framework and tools have been developed to account for hydrological conditions and modify power system models accordingly. For example, HyDat – data and AI driven platform, that provides that data required for editing the power system model files Collaborative effort with V&R Energy. Also, development of POM based tools have been performed, a) Tool1: editing .raw files with realistic current and maximum hydrogeneration and redispatch of other units, and b) Tool2: Editing .dyr files to represent water head, current and maximum generation. Finally the framework, HASP framework combines HyDat and V&R energy tools to produce modified power system model files. Key Take-away points from contingency analysis studies include a) the number of critical contingencies increases as the water levels are reduced (70%>75%>80%), and b) both the extent and the quality of dynamic response of the Hydropower unit is different with varying water head levels.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Paired Hydro-Battery Hybrid System Operations Using MIQP Based Multi-Objective Optimization

Hybridizing a hydropower plant with a battery energy storage system is often a very expensive decision. So to make the case for feasibility of hybridization the cost benefit analysis must be comprehensive. Most literature found on this subject only uses one out of many different available value streams to carry out a feasibility analysis. To that end, in this study we propose a multi-objective optimization formulation and a mixed-integer quadratic programming optimization engine that considers multiple different value streams and optimizes hydro-battery hybrid system paired operations to maximize revenue generated from energy arbitrage while simultaneously minimizing the total hydro turbine mileage thus reducing turbine starts and stops and improving turbines life all while following all environmental constraints and not violating any limitations either regulatory or preferential (i.e., to support recreational activities like white water rafting, etc.). In this study we also implemented the developed optimization methodology to a real-world case study of Bagnell dam hydropower facility (8 units totaling 240 MW rated power capacity) which is owned and operated by our industry partner Ameren Energy Inc. The case study outcomes shows that by hybridizing the Bagnell dam hydropower facility with a 60 MW x 2-hr battery energy storage system, the annual benefits can be increased over \$6 million while reducing the annual mileage averaged per turbine and number of start/stops by over 98\% and 85\% respectively.

Chalishazar, Vishvas H.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Capacity contributions of Southern Oregon offshore wind to the Pacific Northwest and California

Variable renewable energy generation poses unique capacity challenges, which increasingly depend on weather events at varying timescales. Facilitated by transmission planning, geographic and technological diversity of the generation fleet may provide a mitigation to capacity shortfalls. In this work, offshore wind (OSW) energy is sited in the areas off the West Coast between Coos Bay, Oregon, and Crescent City, California. Three generation and transmission scenarios are modeled within the Western Interconnection: (i) 3.4 gigawatts (GW) of installed OSW capacity connected to Southern Oregon through a High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) Radial Topology in 2030; (ii) 12.9 GW of installed OSW capacity connected to Washington, Oregon, and California through a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Radial Topology post-2030, and (iii) the same 12.9 GW connected to the same locations through a Multi-terminal DC (MTDC) Backbone Topology post-2030. Zonal dispatch simulations assuming coincident wind, solar, and hydropower production and loads over 18 meteorological years, accounting for temperature-dependent equipment derating and forced outages, serve as inputs to the Associated System Capacity Contribution (ASCC) methodology. The capacity credit is 33%, 25% and 34% for the 2030 HVAC Radial Topology, 2030+ HVDC Radial Topology, and 2030+ MTDC Backbone Topology, respectively. Transmission design is shown to mitigate the typical erosion of marginal capacity contribution as more OSW is developed, underscoring the opportunity for grid modernization while decarbonizing the generation mix.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

An Assessment of Technical Hydropower Potential at Non-Powered Dams in the United States

Historically, dams have been constructed for a variety of purposes, such as providing a more secure and reliable water supply, mitigating impacts from variations in river flow, allowing continuous navigability, and harnessing mechanical power. A relatively small portion of dams have been designed to store or regulate flows for the purpose of generating electricity (roughly 3% of nationally inventoried dams in the US and 17% of the dams included in the World Register of Dams). The remaining population of existing non-powered dams (NPDs) presents both an opportunity to generate renewable energy and a need to modernize aging infrastructure. This report describes an assessment of more than 2,600 NPDs in the US that have a collective potential of nearly 4 GW in new power capacity. Previous national-scale assessments were aimed at evaluating the theoretical maximum power potential at existing dams in the United States. These estimates were based on the best available information at the time for water availability, hydraulic head, and representative regional capacity factors. This study revisits a subset of 3,299 dams identified in the most recent theoretical resource assessment and uses more detailed and updated hydrologic data to produce estimates of technical potential. These improvements in data enable estimates that more realistically reflect what is physically possible given simple assumptions about the existing structure and constraints on flow and head (Figure 1).

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗