National Labs Identify Modeling Gaps in Studies Needed To Improve Understanding of Hydropower Capabilities

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, with support from Idaho National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, developed a report outlining how hydropower modeling could be improved to better represent its dynamic role in a changing grid. During discussions with national laboratory experts, industry stakeholders identified the need for differentiated approaches to hydropower modeling at different scales, improvements in the organization of publicly available data, improved approaches for validating and characterizing uncertainty, new modeling frameworks that can address multiple competing objectives, and increased collaboration and interaction among the hydropower and power grid modeling communities.

These priorities are based on engagement with industry stakeholders, including experts in power grid and hydropower modeling, reservoir operations, and representatives from hydropower system operators, grid managers, national laboratories, the U.S. Department of Energy, and other federal agencies to identify gaps and prioritize solutions in modeling hydropower plants in steady-state and dynamic models used by grid operators. Future work in this area will seek to resolve these gaps in power system modeling for hydropower, helping to properly evaluate this resource’s ability to support a clean electricity grid.