Exemplary Design Envelope Specification for Standard Modular Hydropower Technology

Abstract

The authors would like to thank the many stakeholders with whom we have engaged to elicit feedback on the opportunities and challenges associated with developing and deploying standard modular hydropower technologies. Ongoing engagement with these technology innovators, commercial service/equipment providers, project developers, and environmental stewards has yielded insight into the myriad perspectives and experiences that shape the current hydropower landscape and inform standard modular hydropower research.

Standard Modular Hydropower: Case Study on Modular Facility Design

“…The standard modular hydropower (SMH) project contemplates a new approach to SHP development focused on the principles of early development adoption of standardization, modularity, and environmental compatibility. These principles-outlined in detail in prior works (Witt et al 2016;Smith et al 2016)-are hypothesized as enabling pathways towards a low-cost, low-impact hydropower growth strategy.…”

Simulation and Modeling Capability for Standard Modular Hydropower Technology

“…The simulation use cases are defined scenarios that can effectively be addressed with the use of a model or group of models. These scenarios are constructed based on input from stakeholder concerns and priorities and leverage the functional requirements, relationships, and constraints from the EDES (Witt et al 2017). The use cases, discussed in greater detail in Section 3, are established to address the decision, design, and trade-off optimization issues relevant to SMH.…”

“…In Witt et al (2017), various objectives and requirements are identified for SMH generation, passage, and foundation modules and help form an EDES for SMH technology designs. In conjunction with those designs, this report serves to identify the simulation and modeling capabilities needed to predict whether proposed designs meet the desired objectives and requirements.…”

“…• The SMH Multi-Year Research Plan (Smith et al 2017) provides the context, background, and vision for SMH RD&D activities. • The SMH Exemplary Design Envelope Specification (EDES; Witt et al 2017) provides a framework for technology-neutral conceptual SMH design that conforms to module-specific objectives, requirements, and constraints.…”

“…The groundwork being laid through the DOE/ORNL research efforts offers guiding principles for achieving broad small hydropower development in a sustainable way. With the SMH EDES (Witt et al 2017) and stakeholder perspectives serving as a framework, this report describes the needs, capabilities, gaps, and challenges associated with modeling (i.e., predicting) the effectiveness of conceptual SMH designs and simulating the trade-offs associated with various design considerations.…”