Hydropower research | Hydro exploration
Industry-wide research has recently been focusing on non-powered dams, technological innovation and gender gap analysis
HYDRO POWERS ALMOST 3700 dams and represents 7% of the total energy portfolio in the US. However, this is only 3% of the 91,000 structures documented in the National Inventory of Dams, meaning that thousands of non-powered dams (NPDs) offer untapped opportunities for new energy production across the country. Research by Hansen et al recently reviewed how past assessment of NPDs has generally focused on the interests of project developers (ie how much hydropower development potential is available) while, they claim, the needs of other stakeholders have not been adequately addressed. In their paper titled Hydropower Development
Above: To help showcase industry innovations and research from around the world, the International Hydropower Association has launched its new Renewable Energy Innovations Hub
Below: New research looks at the potential for the development of non-powered dams in the US
Potential at Non-Powered Dams: Data Needs and Research Gaps, the authors suggest specific actions for improving the methods and data used in assessing development potential. And, to support further development at NPDs, they believe future research should consider emerging technologies, explore co-development strategies, and incorporate socio- economic incentives and constraints. As Carly Hansen, Mirko Musa, Colin Sasthav and Scott DeNeale state in their research published in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews in April 2021: “The review of methods used to quantify development potential and trends from recent retrofit projects revealed major limitations and deficiencies in current data. Improved data and further research would significantly strengthen evaluations of development potential and inform other decisions related to NPDs.” The authors recommend specific topics that should be prioritised for future research and review how those
research topics are relevant to NPD development. Their recommendations include the need to: ● Establish consistency within and between datasets for large-scale applications.
● Account for uncertainty and variability in estimates of development potential. Many assessments of theoretical potential do not represent true hydrologic variability/uncertainty or dynamic management of a reservoir.
● Consider additional factors affecting feasibility. Several key variables are not yet widely incorporated into large-scale assessments of development feasibility and include factors such as: economics (revenue streams, operating costs), technical (mode of operation and restrictions on storage and releases, current dam infrastructure), environmental (sediment management requirements, inventories of impacted fish and wildlife), and social (public attitudes and perceptions of hydropower, policies, population growth and corresponding projections of energy needs).
● Evaluate development-related information for a broader range of stakeholders. Future assessments of development potential should provide these other types of information to better meet the more diverse needs of stakeholders involved in NPD development. This includes the types and range of technologies that are required at facilities with high development potential (to inform engineers/ manufacturers), or grid/transmission infrastructure that would be required by retrofit NPDs (to inform utilities).
The extent of resources used in NPD evaluations and the vast number of NPDs also “pose a major challenge to stakeholders who are interested in NPD development”. Time intensive data collection, synthesis efforts and specialised skills are obstacles to obtaining key pieces of information. To address these challenges, the authors suggest classifying and discretising this population of NPDs into subsets that are relevant to an individual stakeholder’s priorities and interests. “A more rigorous classification effort would require identification of characteristics that are necessary for evaluating NPDs, gathering and synthesis of datasets from disparate sources, and determining appropriate thresholds or discrete classes for those characteristics,” the report states. “This would allow stakeholders to focus on groups of similar NPDs that are most relevant to their interests.” The authors conclude that future research should account for emerging technologies and incorporate socio-economic incentives and constraints on development. Co-development opportunities should also be explored. In some cases, retrofitting NPDs may present an opportunity for coincident hydrologic
32 | October 2021 |
www.waterpowermagazine.com
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