The Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office’s Biggest Successes of 2025

There’s a lot to celebrate from the past 12 months.

Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office

March 5, 2026

We’ve been busy.  

Since January 2025, the Trump Administration has instituted sweeping changes across the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its sub-offices, redirecting the agency in pursuit of a bold agenda to unleash American energy dominance. As part of those changes, in early 2026, the office responsible for leading DOE’s hydropower and marine energy programs took on a new name—the Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office (formerly the Water Power Technologies Office), or “H2O” for short. H2O was also placed under the Office of Energy Technology in the new Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation (CMEI) to accelerate next-generation energy technologies, and the team is in the process of absorbing staff from the former Grid Deployment Office (GDO) and assuming responsibility for the hydroelectric incentives program. 

H2O enables research, development, testing, and commercialization of technologies to advance next-generation hydropower and pumped storage systems, as well as marine energy, to deliver flexible, reliable energy.  

Hydropower facilities have long provided Americans with affordable, reliable, and secure electricity – nearly 6% of total U.S. utility scale electricity generation and 88% of utility-scale stored energy capacity in 2024 - supporting a flexible and stable electricity grid and ensuring homes and businesses across the country have power when they need it.  

While still in development, marine energy can power remote and coastal communities, defense and national security operations, and offshore industries such as seawater mining with a new source of independent, resilient, and abundant energy. The total available marine energy resources in the United States are equivalent to approximately 57% of current U.S. power generation. Even if only a small portion of this technical resource potential is captured, marine energy technologies would make significant contributions to America’s energy system. 

Over the past year, H2O staff have worked tirelessly to advance the research and development of both hydropower and marine energy in order to strengthen our nation’s energy security and power our future. From partnering with national labs and private companies to technical assistance programs to negotiating dozens of projects, here are the five biggest ways the Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office has made a splash in the past year: 

  1. The H2O team negotiated 51 new research and development awards, bringing projects to the start line to unleash their energy innovation, and ran two water power prizes to advance the next generation of the water power industries. These efforts include, but are not limited to: 
    • $13 million for nine research and development projects across eight states aimed to maximize hydropower’s ability to respond to changing demand on the electric grid and enhance reliability and affordability of the U.S. electric system, 
    • $7.1 million for the Carrizo Four Corners Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH) Center Project led by New Mexico State University in collaboration with the Navajo Nation to investigate the feasibility of a potential PSH project and provide hydropower and storage capacity to the region, 
    • $1 million for a project led by River Connectivity Systems to advance an innovative, low-cost technology that dam operators can use to enhance water quality downstream. This project will help ensure hydropower facilities operate more efficiently and ensure Americans are able to enjoy healthy river systems,  
    • Launching the 2025– 2026 Hydropower and Marine Energy Collegiate Competitions, giving U.S. students real-world experience with water power systems and exposure to career pathways, and 
    • Funding for the Hydropower Foundation to expand workforce development activities and ensure a strong domestic hydropower workforce. 
       
  2. H2O-funded projects at the national labs saw major successes
    • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) gave a hands-on demonstration of its new Hydropower Mapping Tool at Clean Currents 2025 (the largest hydropower trade show in North America). The tool allows users to sort all U.S. hydropower units and plants by common sizes to help aggregate customer demand and was received positively by industry stakeholders.  
    • The team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) behind the Hydropower Market Report released 2024 data and key statistics, providing a quantitative baseline for the U.S. hydropower sector. The team contextualized these updates on an interactive website to keep hydropower stakeholders up to date. 
    • ORNL partnered with fish passage engineers and hydropower experts from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Low Impact Hydropower Institute to create the first national scale database of fish passage infrastructure at U.S. hydropower developments. This database contains information on fish passage facility engineering characteristics, targeted fish species, and costs, enabling stakeholders to address large knowledge gaps. 
    • Idaho National Laboratory (INL) fully released its Non-Powered Dam (NPD) HYDRO toolkit, a site-specific database assessment of over 2,600 NPDs in the continental U.S. Using the toolkit, developers will be able to explore qualitative and quantitative measurements of a given site to help determine the feasibility of retrofitting NPD candidates for power generation. 
    • INL and PNNL released an updated version of IrrigationViz, a visualization tool designed to help support irrigation water delivery organizations as they make modernization decisions. 
    • The InDEEP Prize culminated in a final event, where competitors gathered to give their final pitches and celebrate their accomplishments. Researchers from the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) collected their thoughts and reflections on the prize in a final technical report released early this year.  
    • Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories worked with a team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Ocean Observatories Institute, and others to develop a small-scale wave energy converter that was incorporated into one of the buoys in the Pioneer ocean-observing array while it was out of the water for refurbishment. The array was redeployed off the coast of North Carolina at the end of 2025 where the device has been providing consistent power and data since. 
    • Argonne National Laboratory finished a study with NLR on the commercialization of PSH technologies to help drive future PSH innovation and projects. The study found there is a renewed promise for PSH in many areas of the country.
       
  3. H2O and its partners also supported multiple technical assistance projects over the past year, including:  
    • Matching 12 Hydropower Testing Network (HyTN) technology developers with test facilities and assisting with developing test plans for validation of new hydropower technologies, 
    • Funding two projects for the Water Power Technical Collaboration Program (Water TCP) to support short-term collaborative projects to accelerate the development of innovative water power technologies using advanced manufacturing and materials, 
    • Adding 16 new facilities, approving 39 marine energy projects totaling more than $6.3 million in support, and adding commercialization support to the Testing Expertise and Access for Marine Energy Research (TEAMER) program, and 
    • Completing five HydroWIRES Technical Assistance projects focused on underground PSH at former coal mines, cascading hydropower plants on the Columbia River, Geomechanical Energy Storage, PSH liners, and improving PSH valuation processes. 
       
  4. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, DOE made seven payments from the Hydroelectric Efficiency Improvement Incentives Program, which provides incentive payments to owners and operators of hydroelectric facilities to support capital improvements that increase plant efficiency. Payments made from the program include:
    • $2.8 million to Blind Slough Hydroelectric Refurbishment in Petersburg, AK, 
    • $164,000 to Kern Canyon Hydroelectric in Bakersfield, CA, 
    • $58,000 to Marsh Valley Hydroelectric Facility in McCammon, ID, 
    • $111,000 to Schoolfield Turbine Rebuild in Danville, VA, 
    • $60,000 to Warren Automation in Front Royal, VA, 
    • $60,000 to PE Luray Automation in Luray, VA, and 
    • $1.2 million to Colton Trashrack Upgrade in Pierrepont, NY.
       
  5. In 2025, PacWave—an H2O-funded, grid-connected, accredited wave energy test facility and the first of its kind in the nation—accomplished a major milestone. The site signed a power purchase agreement with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) enabling BPA to purchase up to 20 Megawatt-hours of energy per hour from Oregon State University from 2026–2030. This agreement marks the first ever delivery of wave-generated electricity to the U.S. electric grid and a shift in operations from research and development to full-scale generation. 

On January 23, 2026, the president signed into law H.R. 6938, the “Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act,” providing appropriations for several federal agencies for FY 2026. The law provides $220 million for hydropower and marine energy research, the highest annual appropriation to date.  

In 2026, H2O will use this funding to continue addressing key Trump Administration priorities and building on past success, including increasing generation, addressing supply chain issues, and modernizing the existing hydropower fleet. The Office will also help streamline licensing and permitting, address energy and water resource challenges, and advance next generation hydropower and marine energy technologies. 

Stay in the know with H2O! Receive the latest information on funding opportunities, events, and other news by subscribing to the monthly Water Wire newsletter.  

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