Community Highlights

The Non-Powered Dam (NPD) Toolkit, released in October and developed collaboratively by INL and PNNL, compiles regulatory guidance and procedural information to assist stakeholders navigating non-powered dam hydropower development. The toolkit addresses permitting pathways, environmental compliance considerations, and stakeholder engagement processes, providing structured access to commonly requested regulatory information.

Early user feedback indicates that the toolkit improves clarity around regulatory requirements and supports more efficient project review discussions.

Non-Powered Dam Toolkit

The integration of RFID-enabled Smart Tags with SAP Mobility applications supports improved inspection and maintenance workflows for water and energy infrastructure. Field personnel can scan tagged assets to retrieve maintenance histories, log inspection data in real time, and automate cost allocation processes across system components. This digital asset management approach strengthens data traceability and reduces manual reporting burdens.

Enhanced asset visibility and automated documentation support infrastructure reliability and operational resilience across complex water management and hydropower systems.

SAP Case Study – Smart Tags for SAP Mobility

Field research reported in Hydro Review indicates that Natel Energy’s fish-friendly turbine designs can improve survival outcomes for migratory fish species passing through hydropower facilities. The turbine geometry is engineered to reduce strike probability, minimize shear forces, and manage pressure changes during passage while maintaining generation performance. Early findings suggest the approach offers a viable pathway for projects seeking improved environmental compatibility in ecologically sensitive waterways.

Advances in turbine design that integrate biological performance considerations with energy production objectives represent an important step toward modernized hydropower technologies.

Hydro Review – Research Shows Safe Fish Passage Through Natel Turbines

 

The PSH Cost Model Web App, hosted on OpenEI, provides an interactive framework for estimating the lifecycle costs of pumped storage hydropower (PSH) projects. Users can adjust site characteristics, design parameters, and financial assumptions to evaluate capital expenditures, operations and maintenance costs, and economic feasibility. The platform is designed to support structured cost discussions among developers, planners, and financing partners evaluating long-duration energy storage projects.

By increasing visibility into cost drivers and enabling standardized modeling approaches, the tool advances transparent economic analysis for pumped storage development.

NREL PSH Cost Model Web App

HydroBoost, developed by Idaho National Laboratory and available through the INL Software Catalog, is a publicly accessible tool for evaluating hydropower project value streams. The platform supports scenario-based modeling of revenue potential, capacity value, and grid service contributions under varying market and operational assumptions. Users can modify financial and technical inputs to assess project economics across a range of deployment contexts.

By improving transparency in valuation analysis and clarifying hydropower’s service contributions to energy systems, HydroBoost supports more rigorous economic assessment and informed investment discussions.

INL Software Catalog – HydroBoost

The Open Energy Information (OpenEI) platform hosts an open-access collection of hydropower workforce development reports, analytical tools, and reference materials to support educators, employers, and policy planners. The Hydropower STEM and Workforce Reports section aggregates studies on labor trends, training gaps, skill needs, and career pathway development across the water power sector. By consolidating materials from multiple authors and institutions, the platform provides a shared knowledge base for workforce strategy and education planning.

Improved access to workforce data enhances transparency and supports coordinated efforts to align hydropower education, training programs, and industry needs.

OpenEI – Hydropower STEM / Workforce Reports

 

The Foundation for Water & Energy Education (FWEE) delivers hydropower-focused training programs and experiential learning opportunities for teachers and students throughout the Pacific Northwest. Through educator workshops, curriculum development support, and STEM Career Academies, FWEE connects classroom instruction with applied water and energy system concepts. Students gain exposure to hydropower technologies, resource management principles, and career pathways spanning engineering, environmental science, and utility operations.

By strengthening regional energy literacy and supporting early-career exposure to hydropower systems, FWEE contributes to long-term workforce development in communities where hydropower infrastructure plays a foundational role in energy supply and water management.

Foundation for Water & Energy Education – Teacher & Student Opportunities

Investing in training and workforce development is important to ensuring hydropower continues to provide renewable energy and critical grid services in the future. In addition to direct education, training, and mentoring efforts, this includes appropriate documentation for the future workforce. With this in mind, W.E.S.T. USA, Inc. is working with hydropower owners and operators to develop technical manuals tailored to their facilities. This technical documentation is digital, specific to the facility’s equipment, and incorporates the institutional knowledge of employees that are near retirement to ensure that valuable information is retained. 

Learn more from W.E.S.T. USA, Inc.

Accurately estimating the full value of pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is key to supporting future developments, but PSH provides both market and non-market services that can be difficult to quantify. To address this, Argonne National Laboratory led a multi-laboratory team to create the Pumped Storage Hydropower Valuation Tool. Developed with input from industry participants and guided by a technical advisory group consisting of industry experts and other stakeholders, the free tool provides valuation guidance that accounts for all grid services and contributions from PSH plants. Users of the tool are guided through the 15-step valuation process that features a back-end benefit-cost analysis tool, a price-taker valuation tool for small-scale PSH, and a multi-criteria decision analysis tool. There is also an accompanying guidebook that provides consistent, repeatable methods to more accurately value PSH projects and inform stakeholder decisions on future PSH investments.

Learn more about the PSH Valuation Tool from Argonne National Laboratory. 

All inland bodies of water have some level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from microbes in the environment that naturally produce carbon dioxide and methane. Current estimates of GHG emissions from reservoirs are incomplete and vary widely, which makes it challenging to calculate total emissions related to hydropower operations. To better quantify and reduce reservoir emissions related to hydropower, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using advanced tools to measure reservoir GHG emissions released through multiple processes, including degassing as water is passed through turbines. Warmer water temperatures in the future are expected to alter GHG emissions from reservoirs, but better understanding the current GHG emissions can improve models that inform reservoir management to mitigate emissions for climate resilience. 

Learn more from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.