Draft2:Federal Memorandum of Understanding for Hydropower
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The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Hydropower was signed on March 24, 2010 and extended it on March 24, 2015 for another five years. The MOU is helping meet the nation’s needs for reliable and affordable hydropower with minimal environmental impacts by strengthening a long-term working relationship, prioritizing similar goals, and aligning ongoing and future renewable energy development efforts between the Agencies.
A new version called the Memorandum of Understanding for Federal Hydropower was signed on June 2, 2021.
DOE relevance
The signers, collectively the “Agencies”, were the
- Department of Energy
- Department of the Interior
- Department of the Army through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Power Marketing Administration Collaboration
The Agencies will collaborate with the Power Marketing Administrations on the Topics Areas as they continue to explore opportunities to retain and improve Federal hydropower value to the nation and the Federal hydropower customers.
Background
The energy landscape is evolving quickly with the inclusion of distributed renewable energy sources, utility-scale renewables, regional markets, the need for hydropower as a resilience resource and new alternative utility business models. The Agencies face challenges in adapting and upgrading their aging infrastructure and operational strategies. Technology RD&D is an important mechanism to support such adaptations and upgrades.
Commitments topics
Upon ratifying, the Agencies intend to collaborate to create an action plan outlining specific projects and activities under each topic area within ninety (90) days. The action plan will be designed to adapt hydropower to changing markets, environmental concerns, and water issues, and to facilitate the influx of non-dispatchable generation resources penetrating the bulk electric system. Projects and activities developed under this action plan will use data driven, risk-based decision making to inform a path forward for any deliverables.
Topic Areas for consideration include:
Asset Management
Asset management is a broad term covering many areas of hydropower and accompanying transmission grid operations, maintenance, and capital improvement programs. The Agencies will focus on areas of collaboration for digitalization, maintenance management, asset condition health monitoring, and failure -mode analysis to maximize the value of investments in hydropower, increase reliability of generation and transmission assets, and minimize labor-hours required to keep assets in working order.
Value of Hydropower
Hydropower provides value to the bulk electric system beyond clean energy generation through a variety of critical ancillary services, such as frequency support, black start capability, spinning reserve, and flexibility to respond to system disturbances. These ancillary services support other generation resources, especially non-dispatchable renewable energy resources. The full extent of the value of these services is not well understood. Quantifying the value of service will enable the Agencies to define it solely beyond present energy generation rates, and communicate the value to the greater hydropower stakeholder community. The Agencies will collaborate with Federal hydropower customers on this Topic Area.
Workforce
The workforce employed by the Agencies is the most critical asset in delivering the Agencies' mission essential functions related to power. The Agencies share a training need to attract and develop qualified, safe, and knowledgeable employees, for both new and continuing education opportunities. Under this MOU, the Agencies intend to analyze and expand training needs within the industry, and develop opportunities to deploy collaborative training. In addition, the Agencies may collaborate on the development of recruiting strategies to attract qualified specialists necessary to ensure a diverse and multifaceted Federal hydropower workforce.
Water Supply Reliability
The United States faces water reliability challenges. Widespread drought, increased populations, aging infrastructure, and environmental requirements all strain existing water and hydropower resources. Adequate and safe water supplies are fundamental to the health, economy, and security of the country. The Agencies plan to work together to share information and identify areas of collaboration and to understand and build resilience into water-energy systems.
Environmental Outcomes
The Agencies seek to understand and optimize environmental outcomes and achieve cost stability through technology development, deployment, data collection, monitoring, modeling, and best available science. Because environmental costs make up a significant portion of Federal hydropower energy rates, the Agencies intend to investigate new methods and technologies to meet environmental standards at a lower cost while maintaining operational flexibility and generation.
Related
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