Community Highlights

These highlights feature efforts by the community that are bringing us closer to a modern vision for hydropower. Interested in featuring your project? Contact the Vision team.

Solutions for Underwater Hydropower Turbine Inspections

Advanced Technology

Innovative Approaches and Materials

Industry

Turbine maintenance often means costly downtime and time-consuming work, particularly when trying to inspect hard-to-reach areas of turbines. GE’s Hydro Solutions’ underwater roboticized turbine inspection vehicle is an option designed to enable quicker turbine inspections without dewatering the equipment. The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) technology requires few personnel to deploy, which can help reduce the time and cost of inspections. It enables facilities to conduct on-demand inspections of turbines to visually evaluate erosion, cavitation, corrosion, or impact marks. It is an example of an innovative technical advancement that provide real-time insights into the health and performance of hydropower facilities, supporting hydropower’s ability to meet changing energy needs.

Learn more from GE.

Still image from the digital campaign that shows a picture of a river with words in an overlay that say, Hydropower: the solution that's right in front of you. — Still from NHA's digital marketing campaign. (Photo courtesy of NHA)

Hydropower: The Solution That’s Right in Front of You, a Digital Campaign

Enhanced Collaboration, Education, and Outreach

Renewable Recognition

Industry

Other stakeholders

The National Hydropower Association elevated the visibility of hydropower as a renewable energy source through its digital advertising campaign, Hydropower: The Solution That’s Right in Front of You. The campaign took a storytelling approach that leveraged engaging photos and videos to appeal to a broad audience on social media and streaming platforms. The materials highlighted how hydropower provides clean and reliable energy, supports other renewables, has a long record of success as well as room for future innovation, and provides additional value through recreation opportunities. The impactful campaign reached millions and had a largely favorable impression, boosting hydropower’s visibility as a renewable energy and communicating its myriad value to a wide audience.

Learn more about the campaign from NHA.

Documenting Information for the Future Hydropower Workforce

Enhanced Collaboration, Education, and Outreach

Workforce Development

Industry

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.

High-Density Pumped Storage Hydro for Efficient Energy Storage

Advanced Technology

Innovative Approaches and Materials

Industry

Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) currently accounts for roughly 96% of all utility-scale energy storage in the United States, and a new approach developed by RheEnergise could make PSH appropriate for more applications. Instead of using water, the RheEnergise approach uses an inexpensive proprietary fluid that is 2.5 times more dense than water. The higher density fluid can generate the same amount of power as a traditional pumped storage hydropower facility while using significantly smaller tanks and requiring less elevation change. That makes the approach a better fit for landscapes with less elevation and smaller footprints. Designed to provide long-duration energy storage of up to 50 MW at individual projects, the high-density hydro approach can be co-located with other energy projects and leverage existing grid infrastructure. It’s an innovative, cost-effective approach to energy storage that could unlock more opportunities for PSH development to support the grid.

Learn more from RheEnergise.

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