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See DOE and National Laboratories at Clean Currents 2023

The Water Power Technologies Office and national laboratories will be attending and presenting on their work at the Clean Currents conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, from Oct. 10-13, 2023.

Water Power Technologies Office

October 5, 2023

Meet staff and experts from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) and several national laboratories at Clean Currents in Cincinnati, Ohio, from October 10–13, 2023. Hosted by the National Hydropower Association, this annual conference for the water power sector features research and brings together professionals focused on conventional, pumped storage, and small hydropower, as well as marine energy.

DOE Booth

WPTO, DOE’s Grid Deployment Office (GDO), and national laboratory representatives will be at booth 611 throughout the conference. Researchers from Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne), Idaho National Laboratory (INL), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will also present a series of “flash talks” over two days (Flash talk times are also available in the Clean Currents 2023 mobile app). These short presentations cover timely water power topics and feature demonstrations.

Wednesday, October 11	Presentation	Presenter	Lab
11–11:20 a.m.	Hydropower Vision	Alison Colotelo	PNNL
11:20–11:40 a.m.	RAPID Toolkit	Aaron Levine	NREL
11:40 a.m.–12 p.m.	Hydropower eLibrary	James Bradford	PNNL
1:15–1:35 p.m.	Small Hydro Interconnection	Hope Corsair	ORNL
1:35–1:55 p.m.	Developing a Non-Powered Dam Retrofit Financial Gaps- Analysis Tool: Assessing Actions to Increase Financial Viability of Projects	Mucun Sun	INL
1:55–2:15 p.m.	Pumped Storage Hydropower Resource Assessment and Supply Curves Tool	Stuart Cohen	NREL
3–3:20 p.m.	The Prospects for Pumped Storage Hydropower in Alaska	Vladimir Koritarov	Argonne
3:20–3:40 p.m.	Hydropower Cybersecurity Value-at-Risk Framework	Anuj Sanghvi	NREL
3:40–4 p.m.	Hydropower Fleet Intelligence	Pradeep Ramuhalli	ORNL
4–4:20 p.m.	Cold Spray for In-Situ Repair of Cavitation Damaged Hydropower Hardware	Christopher Smith	PNNL

Thursday, October 12	Presentation	Presenter	Lab
11–11:20 a.m.	Modeling Marine Energy Systems with the System Advisor Model	Elena Baca	NREL
11:20–11:40 a.m.	Hydropower Technology Catalog	Trevor Atkinson	INL
11:40 a.m.–12 p.m.	Hydropower STEM to Workforce	Jennifer Daw and STEM Team	NREL
1:30–1:50 p.m.	Floating Solar	Juan Gallego-Calderon	INL
1:50–2:10 p.m.	Energy Flexibility-Environment Trade-Off Tool	Mucun Sun	INL
2:10–2:30 p.m.	Building a National-Scale Dataset of Fish Passage Facilities at Hydropower Developments in the United States	Paul Matson	ORNL
3–3:20 p.m.	Hydropower eLibrary	James Bradford	PNNL
3:20–3:40 p.m.	Climate and Water Risk to the Bulk Power System	Stuart Cohen	NREL

WPTO-Hosted Side Events

Catch WPTO, prize competition teams, and national laboratory staff as they work with the students and innovators attending Clean Currents on their ideas for the future of hydropower and clean energy.

WPTO and PNNL are providing training that will equip hydropower professionals with cybersecurity best practices to protect hydropower facilities. Participants will gain an understanding of the importance of cybersecurity in ensuring a safe and reliable hydropower system, contributing to a more informed and diverse hydropower cybersecurity community, and supporting the transition to a clean energy future. The event will occur on Tuesday, Oct. 10 from 1–5 p.m.
WPTO and NREL will gather students and faculty advisors for the kick-off of the 2024 HCC. Clean Currents attendees are welcome to stop by to meet the students and faculty as the teams prepare to compete in the second annual HCC. This event will occur on Tuesday, Oct. 10 from 1–5:30 p.m.
WPTO and NREL will bring together industry professionals with university students. In a guided networking exercise, students and industry professionals will collaborate to discuss pathways to water power jobs and discover new career opportunities. Those planning to attend should reach out to Betsy.Stratton@nrel.gov to confirm their attendance. The event will occur during lunch on Wednesday, Oct. 11 from 12–1 p.m.
The purpose of this session is to provide an opportunity for conference attendees to meet with competitors from the Hydropower Operations Optimization (H2Os) Prize and hear about their innovative technology solutions to improve hydropower system operations. The event will occur on Wednesday, Oct. 11 from 3 to 4 p.m.
During this event, WPTO Director Jennifer Garson will celebrate the winners of the H2Os Prize and award cash prizes to the winning teams. Teams are competing in person during the conference. Throughout the prize, teams have been working toward the goal of developing new solutions to advance hydropower’s contributions to the grid. The event will occur on Thursday, Oct. 12 from 12–1 p.m.

DOE and National Laboratory Speaking Engagements

Don’t miss hearing from DOE and national laboratory staff throughout the conference as they discuss everything from the importance of cybersecurity in hydropower to the future of the sector and how flexibility will play a key role in integrating renewables into the electric grid.

Tuesday, October 10	Session	Speaker	Affiliation
1–3 p.m.	Focus on Hydropower Flexibility: Balancing Grid Demands, Operational Realities, and Regulatory Requirements	Sam Bockenhauer	WPTO
3:30–5:30 p.m.	The Art of Public Speaking and Facilitation	Jennifer Daw	NREL

Wednesday, October 11	Session	Speaker	Affiliation
9–10:15 a.m.	Plenary Sessions (Unveiling of the Hydropower Vision Roadmap)	Jennifer Garson	WPTO and GDO
11–11:30 a.m.	New Website for Easily Accessing Needed Licensing Information from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission	James Bradford	PNNL
11-11:30 a.m.	A Roadmap to Intelligent Watersheds: Evaluating Knowledge Gaps and Feasibility	Vincent Tidwell	PNNL
11 a.m.–12 p.m.	Domestic Manufacturing and Supply Chain	Kyle DeSomber	WPTO
11 a.m. -12 p.m.	Reservoir Emissions: Demystifying the Discussion	Carly Hansen	ORNL
11:30 a.m.-12 p.m.	New Tool for Assessing the Profitability of Adding an Optimally Sized Battery to a Hydro Plant	Tyler Phillips	INL
1:15-1:45 p.m.	New Tool for Simulating Downstream Flows to Assess Energy Flexibility-Environment Tradeoffs	Hongfei Hou	PNNL
1:45-2:15 p.m.	Demonstrating Small Hydro’s Black Start and Grid Islanding Capability with Energy Storage Support	Yemi Ojo	INL
3-3:30 p.m.	Analyzing Opportunities for Powering America’s Non-Powered Dams	Scott DeNeale	ORNL
3–4 p.m.	Changing the Conversation: Flexibility is the New Generation	Dana McCoskey	WPTO
3-4:15 p.m.	Next Generation Workforce: Roundtable Discussion with University Students, Professors, and Industry	Elise DeGeorge and Jennifer Daw	NREL
3:30-4 p.m.	Leveraging Non-Powered Dams for Hydropower Generation: A Multi-Criteria Decision Framework for Site-Level Analysis	Kazi Tamaddun	PNNL
4:15-4:45 p.m.	Cataloguing and Quantifying Additional Value Streams from Non-Powered Dam Conversion	Mark Weimar	PNNL
4:15–5:15 p.m.	Conversation on Water Management	Nathalie Voisin and Daniel Broman	PNNL
4:15–5:15 p.m.	Just Add Water: Hydropower’s Role in a Decarbonized Grid	Tim Welch and Greg Stark	GDO and NREL
4:15-5:15 p.m.	Workforce Management and Succession Planning – Properly Training New Hydro Generation Employees for Both Large and Small Organizations	Jennifer Daw	NREL
4:45-5:15 p.m.	Lessons Learned and Emerging Tools to Support Development at Existing Infrastructure	Mirko Musa	ORNL

Thursday, October 12	Session	Speaker	Affiliation
9–10 a.m.	Plenary Session (H2Os Winners Preview)	Jennifer Garson	WPTO
11-11:30 a.m.	A Tool for Addressing Hydro Generation Modeling Gaps in Transmission System Operation and Planning	Slaven Kincic	PNNL
11 a.m.–12 p.m.	Tipping the Economic Scale Toward Small Hydropower	Scott DeNeale	ORNL
11 a.m.–12 p.m.	Roadmap to 2050: The Hydropower Vision	Alison Colotelo	PNNL
11:30-12 p.m.	Integration of a Wind Farm in a Hydro-Dominated Power System: Challenges and Solutions	Soumyadeep Nag	INL
1:30-2 p.m.	Inexpensive Non-Toxic Coating to Prevent Biofouling	Curtis Larimer and Joseph Daddona	PNNL
1:30–2:30 p.m.	Hydropower Asset Management	Pradeep Ramuhalli	ORNL
3-3:30 p.m.	An Open-Source Python Tool for Hydropower Potential Assessment and Prefeasibility Studies	Camilo Jose Bastidas Pacheco	INL
3–4 p.m.	Pumped Storage – Contributions to the Energy Transition	Bo Saulsbury	PNNL
3:30-4 p.m.	Building a National-Scale Dataset of Fish Passage Facilities at Hydropower Developments in the United States	Paul Matson	ORNL

Friday, October 13	Session	Speaker	Affiliation
10 a.m.–12 p.m.	Planning for Change: Where to Get Hydro-Climate Projection Datasets and How to Use Them	Charles Scaife, Shih-Chieh Kao, and Nathalie Voisin	WPTO, ORNL, PNNL

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Tags:

Hydropower
Marine Energy
National Labs
Clean Energy
Energy Storage