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Since 1970, people across the globe have celebrated Earth Day and used the opportunity to discuss ideas that could protect our environment and natural resources for future generations. At the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, we work with partners across government, industry, and our National Labs to advance technologies that improve our country’s access to clean, affordable, and reliable electricity.

This Earth Day, I’d like to acknowledge some of the successes within my office, the Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), which supports research, development, and testing of marine energy, hydropower, and pumped storage systems for a flexible, reliable grid. The primary goal of WPTO’s work is to drive improvement in these water power technologies—lowering costs, increasing efficiency, and continually increasing the ability to safeguard the environment and the many aquatic species in our lakes, rivers, and oceans. Our diverse portfolio of environmentally focused projects includes cutting-edge solutions to better characterize, avoid, and reduce potentially harmful impacts from water power technologies while still leveraging water power’s benefits. We work closely with environmental scientists and technology innovators as we pursue these important efforts.

Fish Tracking Tags: In FY 2020, WPTO will launch a new acoustic telemetry fish tag development project at PNNL that will improve the tools available to scientists who study species of concern for hydropower, like the American shad. This new tag follows a long line of work at PNNL to improve technologies to monitor fish movement, migration, habitat use, and interactions with hydropower dams.

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, WPTO celebrates its project successes and contributions to the health of the planet and protecting our critical aquatic resources.