Water Power Research
Advancing hydropower and water energy systems through research, tools, and partnerships.
What is Hydropower?
Hydropower uses the movement of water to generate electricity. Water flows through turbines, which convert the water’s energy into mechanical energy that generators convert into electricity.
Hydropower currently provides approximately 6% of the nation’s electricity, with significant opportunities for growth through resources such as non-powered dams and irrigation infrastructure. At the same time, existing hydropower assets must adapt to evolving grid needs through innovations such as battery integration, advanced controls and hybrid energy systems.
INL Water Power Research
Idaho National Laboratory partners with utilities, developers, government agencies and researchers through applied research, technology development, technical assistance and collaborative projects. This work helps improve hydropower performance, enhance grid resilience and accelerate the deployment of innovative water energy solutions.
Hydropower Hybridization
INL evaluates how energy storage, advanced controls and other technologies can improve the flexibility, resilience and performance of existing hydropower systems.
Irrigation Modernization
INL helps water users evaluate infrastructure improvements that improve water delivery, reduce losses and create opportunities for energy generation and revenue.
Non-Powered Dams
INL helps identify and evaluate opportunities to add hydropower generation to existing dams while supporting grid, community and industrial needs.
Water Power Partnerships
Collaboration is central to INL’s water power research. By working directly with utilities, developers and other organizations, researchers develop tools and solutions grounded in operational needs and real-world challenges.
Fall River Electric Cooperative
Demonstrating hydropower for grid recovery
In 2023, INL partnered with Fall River Electric Cooperative to demonstrate how existing hydropower resources could help a rural community recover from an outage. Researchers combined advanced controls with INL’s portable Microgrid in a Box to restart the grid following a simulated blackout and maintain power to critical services.
The Microgrid in a Box test has accelerated our ability to deploy a hydropower and battery system to provide our members with electricity.
— Bryan Case, CEO, Fall River Electric Cooperative
Idaho Falls Power
Assessing hydropower for grid resilience
INL helped Idaho Falls Power assess the black-start and islanding capabilities of its five run-of-river hydropower facilities. Researchers evaluated seasonal generation capacity and the critical loads the facilities could support during an emergency, providing the utility with information for resilience planning.
To have that outside perspective is very helpful.
— Stephen Boorman, Assistant General Manager, Idaho Falls Power
Turlock Irrigation District
Modernizing irrigation district operations
Turlock Irrigation District in central California helped INL and PNNL improve IrrigationViz by providing operational insights and real-world system data. The district manages more than 250 miles of gravity-fed canals serving approximately 150,000 acres of farmland and also operates an electric generation and distribution system.
The partnership helped researchers expand IrrigationViz to evaluate additional energy technologies, including ground-mounted, floating and canopy solar installations. By incorporating feedback from a large, complex irrigation district, the team improved the tool’s usefulness for water-delivery organizations of different sizes and configurations.
INL News | Water Power
The U.S. has nearly as many miles of irrigation canals as it does highways. The canals, which provide water for millions of acres of crops and pastures, are managed by...
In many electricity markets, hydropower operators earn a significant portion of their revenue from the day-ahead market. In this market, utilities buy electricity based on expected demand for the next...
When constructing or updating a hydropower facility, operators face a daunting array of turbine technology choices. The wrong decision can lead to costly delays and reduced profits, while choosing the...
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Connect with INL’s water power team.
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