U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program

Hydropower Technology Viability

Technology Viability is the primary program effort leading to improvements in the combined energy and environmental performance of hydropower systems. This key activity is divided into two separate activities:

• Advanced Hydropower Technology
• Supporting Research and Testing

These two activities are closely related. For example, the advanced turbine designs now in full-scale field-testing are based on biological design criteria that were developed under the Supporting Research and Testing activity. Similarly, many of the new monitoring technologies under development in SR&T will be used to evaluate the environmental performance of the new turbines under the Advanced Hydropower Technology activity.