Researchers develop a report quantifying hydropower’s contributions to grid resilience and release an accompanying framework and toolkit to allow stakeholders to assess hydropower’s role under various extreme grid conditions.
Water Power Technologies Office
March 9, 2022
minute read time
Grid Reliability, Resilience, & Integration (HydroWIRES)
Project Name: Hydropower’s Contributions to Grid Resilience
Project Team: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (lead), Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Lead Recipient Location: Richland, Washington
As part of the HydroWIRES Initiative, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory-led team developed a report highlighting the importance of hydropower to increasing the U.S. electricity grid’s resilience and enhancing its ability to respond to and recover from extreme events. An accompanying framework and toolkit also allow grid operators, regulators, and policy analysts to assess hydropower’s role under various extreme grid conditions. The project team also included experts from Argonne National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The report outlines hydropower’s characteristics that enable grid resilience and identifies methods, tools, models, and data to analyze hydropower’s impact on resilience. Insights from this report exemplify hydropower’s essential role in stabilizing the grid after sudden, large losses of energy generation and extreme weather impacts. The report also highlights hydropower’s storage capabilities and flexibility as critical assets for ensuring grid reliability during extreme weather events.
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