Water Power Technologies Office R&D Deep Dive Webinar Series

This R&D Deep Dive highlights Sandia National Laboratory's Spatial Environmental Assessment Toolkit (SEAT), which allows energy project stakeholders to simulate site- and technology-specific marine environments to model the beneficial or potentially detrimental impacts WECs or CECs may have. SEAT also offers developers and regulators a way to model how different marine energy deployments can maximize energy production while providing protective barriers for vulnerable coastal environments. The toolkit makes it easier for regulatory agencies, stakeholders, and industry developers to effectively evaluate permit requirements (e.g., what to study, where, and when) saving time and cutting deployment costs.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00—Introduction—Ryan Ingwersen, NREL
2:00—Jesse Roberts, Sandia National Laboratory
13:28—Craig Jones, Integral Consulting
52:35—Q&A with Presenters

Many marine energy devices are built in a modular fashion, to be assembled on site before their deployment. This means that one of the keys to a marine device’s success can be some of the smallest parts—the connectors that hold these pieces together. In this webinar, researchers from Sandia National Laboratory and Florida Atlantic University will talk about the testing program being used to investigate how different fasteners and interconnects hold up to marine conditions.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00—Maxine Hillman, Water Power Technologies Office
2:16—Bernadette Sanchez, Sandia National Laboratory
5:45—David Shifler, Office of Naval Research
28:54—Francisco Presuel-Moreno, Florida Atlantic University
50:04—Q&A with Presenters

In this webinar, the team behind HydroSource, a platform that houses hydropower data sets and offers ways to analyze them through different tools, provides a walkthrough of its hydropower data explorer. Learn about the best ways to use this and other tools for hydropower research and development and to allow different hydropower stakeholders the chance to make data driven decisions.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00—Maxine Hillman, Water Power Technologies Office
3:05—Corey Vezina, Water Power Technologies Office
4:15—Debjani Singh, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
26:58—HydroSource Tool Demo
44:39—Q&A with Presenters

In this webinar, researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discussed how climate change has affected hydroelectric energy generation at 132 U.S. federal hydropower plants across the nation. The researchers also provided a first look at new datasets that may help the broader hydropower community evaluate the climate change-induced long-term risks on their projects and assets.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00—Ryan Ingwersen, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
2:02—Charles Scaife, Water Power Technologies Office
3:11—Shih-Chieh Kao, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
37:26—Q&A with Presenters

As the magnitude and frequency of extreme and stressful grid conditions increase, hydropower will play a vital role in power system reliability. In this webinar, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and National Renewable Energy Laboratory discussed the contributions and limitations of hydropower in maintaining grid reliability during extreme weather conditions such as drought, heatwaves, and wildfires in the Western Interconnection. Learn about the models and tools used in this study to quantify hydropower’s contribution to grid resiliency and how these can be used by the hydropower community at large.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00—Introduction by Maxine Hillman, WPTO Communications
4:48—Abhishek Somani, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 
13:19—Konstantinos Oikonomou, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
28:18—Stephen Gord, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
35:18—Sohom Datta, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
42:33—Q&A with Research Team

This interactive installment in the R&D Deep Dive series included a live demonstration of the Marine Energy Atlas and a discussion on what data and features should be added or changed to this open-access tool.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, Water Power Technologies Office
3:20 – Overview of the Marine Energy Atlas, Katie Peterson, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
15:02 – Demonstration of the Marine Energy Atlas, Paul Susmarski and AJ Schnore, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
29:13 – Q&A with the Researchers

Researchers from Idaho National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory demonstrated their new NPD HYDRO Tool. This tool allows users to identify and prioritize opportunities for adding power generation and energy storage to existing non-powered dams. The researchers showed how it could benefit potential users, how they can offer feedback on the tool, and what could come next in this work.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman
3:10 - Sarah Barrows, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
13:19 – NPD HYDRO Tool Demonstration, Nathan Woodruff, Idaho National Laboratory
26:22 – Q&A with the Researchers

Maintaining and improving water quality has been a longstanding challenge for many hydropower facilities. As new mitigation technologies are developed, we need to improve the monitoring technologies to validate that water quality targets are being met. Pacific Northwest National Laboratories researchers developed a real-time, autonomous and modular water quality monitoring system to enable improved measurement in challenging locations, including dam tailraces. This system reduces risks to workers, provides greater spatial coverage of measurements, and improves communication between the sensor and dam operators. It can help identify and better understand complex issues such as when to implement mitigations, provide more accurate data for water quality models that inform compliance, and enable real-time operational changes to reduce impacts, and potentially increase generation or system flexibility.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office
3:30 - Dana McCoskey, Water Power Technologies Office
4:35 – Jayson Martinez, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
40:48 – Q&A with the Researchers

Explore and compare small wave energy converter performance with the Small WEC Analysis interactive modeling tool. The Small WEC Analysis tool uses performance data from downscaled models of common wave energy converter (WEC) devices and their calculated performance outputs. The devices include a point absorber, a two-body point absorber (Reference Model 3), an oscillating surge device, and an attenuator type device (McCabe Wave Pump). One of the primary use cases for this work is to give an easy way to compare power output for a variety of WECs and model sizes. This publicly available and easily accessible performance library is designed to give access to a more diverse field of technology developers without requiring hydrodynamic experience.

Webinar Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office
3:26 – Jim McNally, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
40:47 – Q&A With the Researchers

A research team from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory will share best practices from their experience instrumenting structures operating in harsh underwater environments, and their experience trying to obtain structural loads data on a deployed marine energy device. Additionally, the webinar will address the following topics:

• Why data acquisition for marine energy is difficult.
• Options for strain measurements on operational tidal turbines.
• Learning from wind: how to model, spec, install, calibrate, and analyze strain gage data on deployed tidal turbines.
• Lessons learned from the deployment of a data acquisition system on an operation tidal turbine

Until recently, no one had experimented with a range of different techniques for instrumenting subsea components, and it’s difficult to find best practices and guidelines to use. Collecting data in a marine environment requires attention to detail for engineers and technicians. Failure of any one component can lead to failure of the entire system so all parts need to be specified and installed with proper procedures. The research team will share what equipment, techniques, and tools worked for this project, as well as the things that didn’t work and what can be improved in the future.

Webinar Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy's Water Power Technologies Office
3:45 – Robynne Murray, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
16:10 – Andrew Simms, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
42:50 – Robynne Murray, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
44:24 – Q&A With the Researchers

Distributed Embedded Energy Converter Technologies (DEEC-Tec) are starting to prove power can come in small packages. The potential ability to integrate a matrix of small individual energy converters together, provides opportunities to develop innovative ocean wave energy converters that could broaden how marine energy is both conceptualized and envisioned as a viable source of renewable energy. This webinar will demonstrate exciting pathways for application of DEEC-Tec that could propel progress in water power.

Webinar Timestamps: 

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office 
2:45 – Blake Boren, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 
5:44 – Jochem Weber, NREL 
10:43 – Blake Boren, NREL 
24:25 – Q&A with Research Team

Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is the largest existing source of utility-scale electricity storage, making it a proven technology to enhance grid reliability and help integrate variable resources like wind and solar photovoltaics. This webinar introduces a new dataset to help determine the role PSH can play in the future electric grid—the first-ever U.S.-focused national resource assessment of closed-loop PSH sites, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. The webinar will describe how this dataset was created to identify locations and cost of nearly 15,000 sites with 35 TWh of energy storage technical potential (3.5 TW of generating capacity at 10 hours of storage).

The data can be used by analysts and decision-makers across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. The webinar will share an example where an electricity capacity expansion model uses the PSH resource data to simulate scenarios for future PSH deployment in the United States, and demonstrate an interactive map and website that explores potential closed-loop PSH locations and their characteristics.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office
3:00 – Kathryn Jackson, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office Hydropower Technology Manager
6:06 – Evan Rosenlieb, National Renewable Energy Laboratory Geospatial Scientist
44:50 – Q&A with Evan Rosenlieb

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), in collaboration with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, launched the Fish Protection Prize in 2019 to inspire innovators to develop more reliable and sustainable water structures to protect fish from traveling into potentially unsafe waters, diversions, and intakes.

In September 2020, three teams were selected as grand prize winners, and now after two years working alongside researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to advance their solutions, these teams are excited to share the progress made toward commercializing their technologies.

The prize-winning teams that received both cash awards and voucher support from PNNL will present during this deep dive are:

• Grand prize: Benjamin Mater of Alden Research Laboratory and Charles Coutant, "Making a Deal with the Devilfish: Biometric-Informed Screening Technology"
• Second place: Nicholas and Kenneth LaBry of Prometheus Innovations, LLC, "Fish Diversion Material & Inspection Improvements"
• Third place: Sterling Watson and Abe Schneider of Natel Energy, "The Center Sender."

These types of solutions are critical to advancing next-generation water power technologies and strengthening existing water infrastructure nationwide. Through the prize funding mechanism, these teams were able to advance their concept closer to commercialization.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office
3:07 – Dana McCoskey, Water Power Technologies Office Environmental Technologies Manager
8:30 - Presentations by winning teams
26:35 - Q&A Led by Prize Judges
46:55 - Conclusion with Tessa Greco, National Renewable Energy Laboratory

In July, the U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office announced eight winners of Phase One of the Hydropower Operations Optimization (H2Os) Prize. The three-stage H2Os Prize challenges innovators to upgrade hydropower technology using 21st century solutions. Competitors are applying modeling, data analytics, and machine learning to create new ways for hydropower systems to plan daily grid operations and meet water management needs, such as water supply, environmental flow requirements, and flood management.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office 
4:32 – Jenny Wiegele, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
10:40 – Clayton Barrows, NREL
27:58 – Abby Watson, RTI International
35:45 – Clayton Barrows, NREL
38:50 – Q&A with Presenters

On May 19, 2022, a cross-lab team from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory presented on alternative opportunities for hydropower.

Opportunities exist to advance hydropower within water infrastructure by characterizing both energy and non-energy drivers to realize unique, untapped values from a range of benefits including new business models, improved facility and community resilience, and improved environmental outcomes.

The research team focused on five primary areas:

1. Water supply and treatment
2. Source water recharge
3. Irrigation modernization
4. Environmental restoration and cleanup
5. Deferrable loads.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office Communications
3:14 – Madden Sciubba, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office Hydropower Support
5:32 – Rajiv Prasad, Earth Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Trevor Atkinson, Earth Scientist at Idaho National Laboratory
34:20 – Q&A With Research Team

The Testing Expertise & Access for Marine Energy Research (TEAMER) program is making marine energy research accessible. The program connects marine energy innovators with state-of-the-art facilities for the support, testing, and expertise they need to create the next big advancement in renewable ocean energy. The program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and directed by the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust. 

Webinar timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, Water Power Technologies Office
4:34 – Tim Ramsey, Water Power Technologies Office Marine Energy Program Manager
8:50 – Matt Sanders, Pacific Ocean Energy Trust
26:10 – Jack Pan, Ocean Motion Technologies
33:25 – Tim Mundon, Oscilla Power
44:25 – Anna Edwards, Oscilla Power
45:30 – Nikki Sather, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
58:00 – John Ahem, University of New Hampshire
1:05:30 – Q&A with Panelists

Oregon State University and the Pacific Marine Energy Center presented the latest design and testing program for the Laboratory Upgrade Point Absorber (LUPA) on March 16, 2022. LUPA is a robust, open-source Wave Energy Converter designed for deployment in the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Basin and can operate as a one-body, two-body (heave only), and a three-body 6-degrees-of-freedom system. The webinar presented the philosophy behind LUPA, give the latest engineering updates, and spark conversations around collaboration and future utilization of the device.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office
0:29 – Bryson Robertson, Oregon State University
3:19 – Bret Bosma, Oregon State University
30:13 – Courtney Beringer, Oregon State University

On March 22, 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) announced $7.1 million to seven projects supporting marine energy testing infrastructures across five Department of Energy National labs. The goal of the award to was invest in lab infrastructure in support of advancing technologies under the Powering the Blue Economy Initiative and develop a roadmap on long-term infrastructure needs for marine energy.

A cross-lab team made up of representatives from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories was tasked with identifying areas for WPTO investments in laboratory testing infrastructure.

“Understanding the present and future testing needs is really going to be crucial for us and also for WPTO to be able to make an informed decision on programmatic investments,” said Rebecca Fao, a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, during the webinar.

The research team shared their preliminary analyses on testing needs and requested feedback from stakeholders and constituents during a webinar on February 9, 2022.

Webinar Timestamps:

0:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, WPTO Communications
3:15 - Lauren Ruedy, WPTO Marine Energy Technology Manager
5:45 - Rebecca Fao, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
15:45 - Budi Gunawan, Sandia National Laboratory
28:05 - Emma Cotter, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
34:22 – Concluding remarks and Next Steps by Rebecca Fao
39:08 – Q&A with Research Team

The number of hydropower facilities facing Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing will double between 2020 and 2030. It’s a process that can draw huge costs both financially and in the time needed. In a webinar on January 26, 2022, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Esther Parish, a member of the team behind the Environmental Decision Support Toolkit walked through the online, interactive, and science-based questionnaire, which provides users with a systematic and transparent method for identifying the potential environmental impacts of a proposed hydropower project, cutting down on discussion time.

Tim Welch, Hydropower Program Manager in the Wind and Water Power Technologies Office, introduced Parish and the webinar by asking a broad question: “What does a sustainable hydropower project look like?”  

After multiple studies, the result was the Environmental Decision Support Toolkit designed to:

1. Characterize and summarize the best-available science for use by diverse hydropower stakeholders seeking to better understand potential hydropower project impacts on the riverine ecosystem.
2. Provide transparent and consistent methodology for identifying and discussing potential environmental impacts during hydropower licensing negotiations.
3. Point users toward key river function indicators of concern to reduce the time and cost of hydropower licensing negotiations and promote greater certainty in federal authorization processes for hydropower development and relicensing.

The desired next step is for individuals to use and implement the toolkit.

“We would love to hear the results of how that goes and get feedback on ways we can improve this,” Parish said during the question-and-answer section of the webinar. Learn more by watching the full webinar:

Webinar Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction by Maxine Hillman, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office
00:09 – Tim Welch, Hydropower Program Manager, U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office
04:40 – Esther Parish, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
43:50 – Q&A with Esther Parish

The team behind the Examination of the Hydropower Licensing and Federal Authorization Process report analyzed licensing and approval timelines, project attributes that may influence those timelines, and their combined effect on costs and risks to developers. Attendees learned how this study will support policymakers, federal and state regulators, and industry stakeholders, informing discussions helpful to individual license proceedings and to policies affecting efficiencies within the larger process. Download the slides >>

This webinar reviewed the accomplishments of the FAST PSH Prize winners and how they intend to move their pumped-storage hydropower concepts and projects into the future. Three of the winning teams described how their innovation has evolved from their original pitch concepts with support from participating national labs including Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Download the slides >>

Alaska is a living laboratory, one that the Department of Energy knows well. Representatives from the Water Power Technologies Office share the work they are doing along the coasts and waterways of Alaska and offer insights into what could be next for water power in The Last Frontier. Download the slides >>

In 2019, The Water Power Technologies Office established the Seedlings Program to provide smaller funding awards for national lab researchers to explore niche projects and creative ideas in hydropower and marine renewable energy research. In just two years, the pilot funded over 70 R&D projects across six national laboratories with sums up to $100,000 each. These projects have the potential to inform future programmatic competitive solicitations, initiatives, and follow-on projects depending on outcomes. Through project presentations and panel discussions, presenters will share solutions found, failures faced, and lessons learned in their innovative process.

DOE's Water Power Technologies Office recently presented on PRIMRE (Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy). PRIMRE is WPTO’s centralized system for storing, curating, and disseminating data and information for all aspects of marine energy. All data and information generated from WPTO national lab, university, and industry projects will find a home somewhere in PRIMRE. This webinar provided a brief introduction to the PRIMRE universe, and then focused on how you can contribute your data to the various knowledge hubs that make up PRIMRE: MHK Data Repository, Tethys, Tethys Engineering, Marine Energy Software Database, Marine Energy Projects Database, and Telesto. PRIMRE is a collaboration between three US Department of Energy national laboratories: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. Download the slides >>

NREL provided an overview on the Hydropower Regulatory and Permitting Desktop (RAPID) Toolkit project as well as recent regulatory and technological updates, including newly released tools, data, and publications. Participants asked questions and provided input on how the hydropower community can best utilize the toolkit. Download the slides >>

The Triton Initiative is researching various environmental monitoring technology and methods to understand how different types of stressors caused by marine renewable energy devices can be tested. The research focuses on the known environmental stressors identified in the State of the Science Report produced by PNNL’s OES-E team. The stressors include collision risk, underwater noise, electromagnetic fields, or changes in habitat. The information gleaned from this research will produce a set of recommendations to inform regulators on how to safely permit marine renewable energy devices bringing the nation closer to meeting climate change goals and reducing dependency on fossil fuels. Download the slides >>

DOE's Water Power Technologies Office is accelerating reinvestment in the nation’s irrigation systems to simultaneously promote farmers’ and rural communities’ economic well-being, generate more renewable energy, advance environmental stewardship, and enable agricultural decarbonization. Idaho National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a decision support and visualization tool called IrrigationViz to analyze the costs and benefits of modernization. Download the slides >>

NREL and WPTO presented on the recently upgraded Marine Energy Atlas, a data and visualization platform that houses the highest resolution publicly available long-term wave hindcast data set that covers the East Coast, West Coast, Alaska, and Hawaii.

The Marine Energy Atlas is a product of the multi-lab resource characterization project. An interactive mapping tool developed to explore potential for marine energy resources, the atlas depicts and maps wave energy; tidal, ocean, and riverine current resources; as well as ocean thermal resources in the United States. Users can explore several variables in each of these mapped resource types, such as peak wave period, tidal and ocean current speeds, and more, by employing data layers. Download the slides >>

WPTO held a workshop on marine energy composites and manufacturing. The Marine Energy Composites & Manufacturing Workshop was a deep dive on composite materials for the marine energy industry. Examples were shared of manufacturing processes that are currently being researched and developed. Panel discussions and breakout sessions examined the challenges and barriers that must be overcome to support large-scale manufacturing processes.

WPTO held a webinar on “Leveraging the Advantages of Additive Manufacturing to Produce Advanced Composite Structures for Marine Energy Systems.” Many marine energy systems designers and developers are beginning to implement composite materials into the load-bearing structures of their devices, but traditional mold-making costs for composite prototyping are disproportionately high and lead times can be long. Furthermore, established molding techniques for marine energy structures generally require many manufacturing steps, such as secondary bonding and tooling. This webinar explores the possibilities of additively manufactured composite molds and how they can be used to reduce costs and lead times through novel design features and processes for marine energy composite structures. Download the slides >>

WPTO held a webinar for those interested in working with the DOE or its associated national labs. DOE representatives directing research for hydropower and marine energy showcased opportunities for working with the DOE, including different research and development, professional development, and career opportunities. Download the slides >>

WPTO held a webinar to present findings and U.S. hydropower trends from the January 2021 edition of the U.S. Hydropower Market Report. Led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the report compiles data from public and commercial sources as well as research findings from DOE projects to provide a comprehensive picture of developments in the U.S. hydropower and pumped-storage fleet and industry trends for U.S. and global hydropower. Download the slides >>

WPTO held its second webinar in the WPTO R&D Deep Dive Webinar Series. Professor David Miller gives a summary of marine hydrokinetic energy composites testing at Montana State University (MSU).

The primary structure of MHK energy devices have difficult and challenging environments for which fiber reinforced plastics are often considered. For cost benefits, glass fiber reinforced plastics (GFRP) are the most prevalent system under consideration. MSU and Sandia National Laboratory have performed research into the moisture effects on the stiffness, strength, and damage of GFRPs for many years. This talk presents a summary of a portion of this effort and also provides references to the thesis and conferences that contain the detailed information. The results include models of moisture absorption, effects of stress on moisture uptake, effects of moisture on damage modes and development, laminate stacking order effects, and culminates with moisture uptake effects on a large sample of industry collected coupons. Download the slides >>

WPTO held its first webinar in the WPTO R&D Deep Dive Webinar Series. Francisco Presuel-Moreno, professor in the ocean and mechanical engineering department at Florida Atlantic University, presented on crevice corrosion in seawater using CFRP/hybrid composite as part of a novel crevice former. 

Marine hydrokinetic (MHK) devices for renewable energy power generation are fully or partially immersed in seawater while in service. MHK devices sometimes are made of composites and a variety of alloys. The composite type used is sometimes carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites, other times fiber glass reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites are used. In some cases, the composites are fastened using metallic hardware. The fastened composites can cause tight occluded regions that later could become crevice corrosion on the fastened metal regardless of the type of composite. A modified crevice former was used to investigate crevice corrosion for fastened samples immersed in seawater using CFRP/hybrid composite plates. Three alloys were investigated: 316 stainless steel, Monel and Titanium alloy. Selected samples were removed for visual examination and dis-assembled after more than 270 days (up to 810 days). Crevice corrosion and pitting corrosion was found on the stainless steel and Monel hardware, and corrosion extent increased with time. Download the slides >>