Voith Hydro’s Alexander Jung: Harnessing Data for Hydro and Pumped Storage
Voith’s Digital Hydro Solutions team helps customers reduce downtime and operate hydro plants more efficiently. As more countries add a mix of renewables to meet carbon reduction goals, the team continues to research how hydro plants can maximize performance and deliver power grid flexibility. In this interview, Dr. Alexander Jung, Voith Hydro’s head of Digital […]
Matthew Shapiro of rPlus Hydro: Pursuing New Pumped Storage Projects Requires Playing the Long Game
As states and utilities move rapidly toward their climate goals of getting 50 or even 100 percent of their energy from renewable sources, the demand for ways to store that energy is growing. Pumped storage hydro is one solution, currently accounting for 95 percent of all utility-scale energy storage in the United States. According to […]
Innovations in the Pipeline at Krah USA
Krah USA makes large-diameter high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes for use in the irrigation, municipal, and hydropower markets. In this interview, co- CEOs Midge Graybeal and Mark Theetge and consultant Marc Thalacker, the manager of an irrigation district in Oregon, tell us about how municipalities, utilities, mines, marinas, and other customers are turning to the company’s […]
Tom Osborn: Working With Irrigators to Increase Energy Efficiency
In the 40 years since Congress directed the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to meet growing energy needs through renewables and efficiency, the agency has saved 2,350 average megawatts (MW) through energy efficiency programs. BPA is a federal power marking agency that markets and transmits power from the Pacific Northwest federal dams and one nuclear power […]
Brad Cavallo of Cramer Fish Sciences: Taking a Second Look at Dams, River Temperatures, and Salmon
Brad Cavallo, a principal scientist at Cramer Fish Sciences, is challenging assumptions that hydropower facilities have an inevitable negative effect on water temperatures and therefore on salmon. He advocates the idea that effects and benefits depend on how dams are operated—and calls for researchers to rely on data and analyses that can accurately account for […]
The Drought’s Effects on Reclamation’s Power Generation in the Lower Colorado Basin demonstration of low water levels.
In the face of drought and a dwindling Colorado River, the job of balancing the needs of people, hydropower, and agriculture is more challenging than ever. In this interview, David Arend, Reclamation’s new deputy regional director for the Lower Colorado Basin Region, talks with Hydro Leader about the effects the basin’s increasingly unpredictable hydrology have […]
Light Up Navajo: Powering Homes in the Navajo Nation
The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) operates electricity, communications, and other utilities for the 27,000‑square-mile Navajo Nation. The 2019 mutual aid project Light Up Navajo and 2020 funding under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act brought power to some of the approximately 14,000 homes on the Navajo Nation that lacked electricity. Hydro […]
The Drought’s Effects on Reclamation’s Power Generation in the Upper Colorado Basin
More and more, the drought in the Colorado basin is affecting the amount of power that can be generated at Glen Canyon Dam and other hydropower plants on the Colorado River. That situation could get worse as lake levels decline. Hydro Leader spoke with Nicholas Williams, the Bureau of Reclamation’s power manager for the Upper […]
Jaclyn Gnusti of Anchor QEA: Solving Sedimentation Woes
When runoff carries sediment into lakes and reservoirs, it can build up and eventually dramatically reduce water capacity. That poses a threat to important sources of drinking water, recreation, wildlife habitat, and even flood control. Hydro Leader talked to Jaclyn Gnusti, the senior managing engineer at Anchor QEA, about how her company tackles the tough […]
FIX! Eddie Rich of the International Hydropower Association: Advocating for Sustainable Hydro at COP26 and on the World Stage
Atlanta-based Emrgy has created a unique hydropower device that can be deployed in water conveyance canals and channels to transform them into power generation assets. Arrays of its modular devices can be deployed with no modification to or construction in the canals themselves. In this interview, Emrgy’s chief technology officer (CTO), Tom Cuthbert, tells us […]
