Multi-Year Program Plan

WPTO Multi-Year Program Plan

The Multi-Year Program Plan (MYPP) helps the Water Power Technologies Office manage and coordinate its work. It explains WPTO’s mission, goals, and plans to water power stakeholders and the public. The report details WPTO’s research, development, demonstration, and commercial activities for the coming years and outlines how these efforts support the nation in meeting its energy goals.

Organized by program and activity area, the Office’s first MYPP summarizes key performance targets WPTO aims to reach by 2025, along with follow-on objectives through 2030.

All goals and efforts advance WPTO’s mission to enable research, development, and testing of new marine energy and hydropower technologies that support a flexible, reliable grid. For additional follow-on objectives, read the Executive Summary.

Each activity area’s key goals are described below.

Key Goals by Activity Area (2021-2025)

Hydropower

- Create data sets and tools to identify opportunities for new hydropower development in new stream-reaches, non-powered dams, and conduit resources.
- Publish R&D roadmap that highlights opportunities for advanced manufacturing and materials in hydropower.
- Test and demonstrate various pre-commercial, cost-competitive hydropower technologies to validate their power production and environmental performance.
- Develop a full-scale, federally sponsored hydropower test facility and/or network of facilities.
- Establish a framework for assessing costs and benefits of new hydropower projects.
- Publish regional roadmaps for maximizing hydropower’s value for grid reliability, resilience, and integration.
- Release a cost-benefit assessment toolbox for hydropower and pumped storage hydropower (PSH) plant owners and operators, focusing on revenue, environmental impacts, and equipment performance.
- Release a cost-benefit toolbox for planners, regulators, and other decision makers that considers system values and costs, hydropower externalities, and the potential to integrate other resources.
- Test innovative R&D technology at a small-scale PSH or flexible hydropower demonstration project, potentially including new enhancement concepts like hybrid controls and advanced operations.
- Develop and share digital twin models, codes, and data for various types of hydropower plants and characteristics. 
- Publish guidance to facilitate hydropower digitalization, maintenance, and cybersecurity investments. 
- Complete initial research on fatigue-and-wear mechanisms for high-impact hydropower components, including both conventional and advanced materials. 
- Develop cybersecurity capabilities that can be integrated into existing systems and reduce hydropower plant vulnerabilities. 
- Validate fish detection and tracking capabilities relevant for hydropower studies, including environmental DNA, acoustic telemetry tags, and self-powered acoustic fish tags.
- Demonstrate innovative, cost-effective, high-performing tools and technologies, including innovative fish passage technologies and sensor systems.
- Use real-time data collection, automation, and visualization to inform hydropower operations that improve environmental performance in water and species management.
- Release a nationwide analysis and visualization platform that helps utilities and system operators evaluate potential long-term water-availability and weather-related risks.
- Validate new technologies to better measure and model methane emissions from reservoirs and water bodies.
- Launch and improve the HydroSource online data portal with broad use-case capabilities.
- Develop application programming interface capabilities that share hydropower market information.
- Collaborate with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other stakeholders to increase access to the commission’s eLibrary, using machine learning and big-data approaches.
- Publish a report on key challenges in hydropower regulations, including time, cost, and uncertainty.
- Create a hydropower education portal and initiate partnerships to provide insight on hydropower workforce training needs.
- Launch the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) first-ever hydropower collegiate competition and hydropower fellowship program to help students develop practical skills for a career in hydropower.

Marine Energy

- Evaluate new materials, like composites, for marine energy technologies, such as wave energy converter hulls and tidal turbine blades.
- Develop co-design methods for power take-off and control systems, partnering with technology developers to pilot these in marine energy technology designs.
- Validate foundational modeling tools with data from water testing projects.
- Share data sets and models by upgrading the Marine Energy Atlas and DOE’s web-based tools.
- Complete marine energy resource assessments to enhance resiliency in specific remote communities. 
- Test new components that improve installation, operations, and maintenance, such as wet-mate connectors and distributed energy conversion technologies.
- Advance power electronics technologies that help marine energy devices connect to coastal community microgrids.
- Complete initial field-testing for modular river current energy converter systems that capture energy in low-flow environments and need minimal ports or vessels.
- Finish year-long field tests of wave energy converters in strong wave conditions, likely at the PacWave facility.
- Demonstrate pre-commercial, newly developed marine energy-powered ocean observing and desalination systems at sea.
- Refine testing for wave energy system concepts, designs, and small-scale prototypes.
- Establish U.S. capabilities that comply with International Electrotechnical Commission technical specifications. These capabilities include power performance and mooring systems assessments, electrical power quality requirements, measurement of mechanical loads, and power performance assessment of current energy converters.
- Provide at least 100 technical support actions through the Testing Expertise and Access for Marine Energy Research initiative in collaboration with U.S. universities and national labs.
- Develop a U.S testing network of at least 30 facilities, including a range of capabilities across marine energy research facilities as well as facilities with interdisciplinary expertise including non-grid applications.
- Identify testing infrastructure gaps, including needs for non-grid applications, at universities and the national laboratories to upgrade and develop new capabilities.
- Commission, initiate testing, and gain accreditation for the PacWave grid-connected, open-ocean wave test facility.
- Test improved environmental monitoring technologies in marine environments while collecting data on acoustic outputs, electromagnetic field signatures, benthic habitats, and marine organism interactions with marine energy devices.
- Publish an assessment of data needs for the marine energy industry.
- Collect, analyze, and publish data from in-water testing projects to improve understanding of marine energy devices and guide new research.
- Integrate publicly available, WPTO-funded marine energy databases and equip them with interconnected search functionality.
- Launch a marine energy permitting toolkit to improve regulators’ access to information about marine energy resources, devices, and potential environmental effects.
- Release a marine energy science, technology, engineering, and math portal with resources for educators and students.
- Expand outreach to bring more students into WPTO workforce programs such as the graduate student research fellowship and Marine Energy Collegiate Competition.

Stay in the know with WPTO as we roll out these new activities! Subscribe to the monthly Hydro Headlines and Water Column newsletters, as well as the comprehensive, bi-monthly Water Wire newsletter for information on funding opportunities, events, products, and news.