Community Highlights

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. 

Economics is a key driver behind the mix of energy sources contributing to the U.S. electric grid. The market value of different energy sources—such as hydropower, solar, wind, or fossil fuels—can determine how competitive they are on the power market. But it is a challenge to accurately estimate the value of hydropower grid services because some of hydro’s key attributes—flexibility and reliability—aren’t included in traditional valuations. To better reflect hydropower’s value, researchers from the Electric Power Research Institute simulated different energy and operating scenarios in the Western Electric Coordinating Council (WECC) region, which encompasses the western United States and parts of Canada and Mexico. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to quantify the value of hydropower in the electric grid, this research established the many value streams available to hydropower and identified opportunities to better assess the value of the full range of services that hydropower provides.

To learn more, read the report and check out a summary from Hydro Review.