Hydropower Development Opportunities for Alaska Native Villages
As a part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 2014 study on hydropower new stream-reach development (NSD) opportunities in the U.S., Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) coordinated with the Alaskan Energy Authority (AEA) and the United States Army Corps of Engineers to assess Alaska’s undeveloped hydropower potential at sites where no dams currently exist. That study identified 437 feasible sites with a combined capacity of 4,723 MW (Kao et al., 2014). In 2016, ORNL met with the U.S. Department of Energy-Alaska Office to discuss hydropower development opportunities to support Alaska Native villages. ORNL, with AEA’ collaboration is evaluating opportunities to increase renewable energy generation for these villages based on the NSD assessment, recent project license applications, and candidate Alaska Renewable Energy Fund projects.Using data for village location, population, diesel consumption, generation and cost, and proximity to existing hydropower and transmission, an initial NSD site feasibility study was performed. To screen out villages and potential hydropower sites that did not meet high-level feasibility criteria, seven filters were used. Based on these filter values, only eleven villages passed all criteria. These eleven hydropower sites have a combined potential capacity of 2.95MW and could supply an estimated 12,934 MWh of renewable hydropower annually. Results indicate that these eleven villages could potentially reduce their total diesel usage by 520,000 gallons per year, which amounts to a present-day value of 50-year diesel savings totaling more than $57 million by tapping into this potential. Follow-up data collection, reconnaissance studies, and pre-feasibility analyses could provide more insight into hydropower development opportunities for Alaska Native villages and focus on the most promising development opportunities identified through this initial study.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 1459283
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Hydro Vision International - Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America - 6/26/2018 12:00:00 PM-6/29/2018 12:00:00 PM
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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