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Related Publications

Technologies for Evaluating Fish Passage Through Turbines (PDF 3.2 MB) 

This study evaluated the feasibility of two types of technologies to observe fish and near neutrally buoyant drogues as they move through hydropower turbines. Existing or reasonably modified light-emi Details

Environmental Impacts of Increased Hydroelectric Development at Existing Dams (PDF 5.5 MB) 

This report describes the environmental impacts of a proposed U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiative to promote the development of hydropower resources at existing dams. Hydropower development at  Details

Feasibility Assessment of the Water Energy Resources of the United States for New Low Power and Small Hydro Classes of Hydroelectric Plants: Main Report and Appendix A (PDF 4.5 MB) 

Water energy resource sites identified in the resource assessment study reported in Water Energy Resources of the United States with Emphasis on Low Head/Low Power Resources, DOE/ID-11111, April 2004  Details

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Conventional Hydropower Market Acceleration

Photo of the Wanapum Dam.

At the Wanapum Dam on the Columbia River, a fish-friendly turbine runner that helps salmon smolts pass through the turbine is under test.

Conventional hydropower contributes significantly to the nation's renewable energy portfolio. The Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program works to assess and quantify the current value of the nation's hydroelectric infrastructure, to assess the environmental impacts of hydropower and to develop new methods to minimize or mitigate those impacts, and to increase the value that hydropower confers to the electricity grid through its ability to integrate other variable renewable energy technologies.

View projects in this area.

Environmental Impacts and Mitigation

Conventional hydropower can produce adverse environmental impacts on fish populations and migrations, on water quality in reservoirs and downstream from dams, and on river habitats both upstream and downstream from dams. The program works to design, develop, and test new ways of reducing these adverse impacts, which have constrained the development of new incremental hydropower generation and improvements in operational flexibility. Areas of focus include:

  • Fish passage issues – Research on the passage of fish through and around hydroelectric structures, including development of baseline biological methodologies and data for key species that can be used for improvements in dam infrastructure, such as turbines, fishways, and fish screens that increase fish passage and survival; demonstrations of new technology to determine fishway effectiveness in real-world applications; methods to measure and predict indirect fish mortality and non-lethal injury rates.
  • Instream flow requirements – Studies to better understand and predict the effects of variable stream flows on fish and wildlife, especially those that occur downstream of hydropower projects; synthesis and integration studies to gather data from experiences across multiple, existing projects.
  • Cumulative impact assessment – Development and demonstration of new methods to predict the cumulative effects of multiple stresses on the fish and wildlife affected by hydropower projects; methods for comprehensive evaluation of all possible routes of fish passage at dams (e.g., turbine passage, fishways, and spillage), for use in optimizing dam operations.
  • Environmental performance measurement methods – Development and testing of improved methods for measuring fish passage mortality (direct and indirect) for use in evaluating the performance of advanced turbines.
  • Greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs – Development, testing, and demonstration of methods to measure and predict greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs at hydropower projects.

Asset Management

Existing hydropower facilities in the United States show signs of deterioration, including declines in electricity generation, capacity factors, and facility availability, but the data to evaluate these facilities, which include both federal and non-federal assets, are scattered and outdated. Integrated and updated information is needed to understand the causes and potential solutions to the large annual variation of hydropower generation.

Grid Services

Conventional hydropower has the potential to increase the flexibility and stability of the U.S. electric grid and to support the integration of variable renewable resources. The program seeks to maximize this potential value by developing and deploying technologies that increase operational flexibility, including pumped storage, as well as the modification of regional computer models to better assess the potential capacity expansion of pumped storage and facilitate introduction of other variable renewable resources into the market.