Hydropower Emulation Platform
NREL researchers are developing a controlled lab environment for hydropower-specific multitechnology evaluation.
NREL researchers Mayank Panwar and Bang Nguyen look at the Real-Time Hydropower Emulation Platform, which uses the ARIES platform. At the core of the platform is the ARIES digital, real-time simulation setup, which is one of the largest in the U.S. Department of Energy lab complex. It is used for control prototyping, evaluating, and validating existing and novel hydropower technologies in a real-time environment using a hardware-in-the-loop approach. Photo by Joe DelNero, NREL
Field validation for new and emerging hydropower technologies is risky, expensive, and time-consuming. However, when industry and NREL researchers use a unique, at-scale laboratory environment, users can develop and validate next-generation controls for hydropower applications under various grid conditions before they are ever connected to the grid. This can accelerate deployment and technology adoption in a risk-reduced manner. Additionally, users can evaluate upcoming technologies that have potential to address hydropower's integration and operational challenges in a vendor-neutral way while using the at-scale environment of NREL's Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES).
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Last Updated Dec. 11, 2024