Impacts of Alternative Operations and Renewable Energy Deployment on Columbia River Hydropower

Technical Report · Tue Nov 19 04:00:00 EST 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2478602· OSTI ID:2478602

De Silva, Thushara ^[1]; Swirsky, Mike ^[2]; Joshi, Sanjeev ^[2]; Graves, David ^[2]; Teixeira, Anthony ^[1]

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1. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
2. Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Portland, OR (United States)

The Columbia River Treaty Tribes in the Pacific Northwest - the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama - hold treaty-reserved fishing rights for the Columbia River, one of the world's most productive salmon rivers and a critical resource for these tribes. However, the tribes have expressed that current operating regimes of hydropower dams throughout the Columbia River Basin (CRB) do not fully account for tribal fishing rights and have negatively impacted fish populations. Four tribes acting together through the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC)'s 2022 Energy Vision stated that current power system models often do not fully account for the many constraints faced by hydropower facilities in the CRB. As the deployment of variable renewable energy (VRE) like solar and wind continues to increase, power system flexibility will become increasingly important. As a result, there is a growing need to better understand the true capabilities of the hydropower generation fleet while accurately accounting for ecological constraints (Northwest Power and Conservation Council 2022). Understanding hydropower's role in a future grid with a higher share of VRE can inform water resources planning to address ecological needs. The goal of this study is to examine the impacts of alternative hydropower operation rules and weather variability on hydropower generation and grid operations in VRE and transmission infrastructure deployment scenarios. The study evaluates how hydropower scheduling practices can reduce ecological impacts to the region's salmon populations. More specifically, the study examines the impact of today's dam water release rules (called "adjusted base water rules" in this study) and new, ecologically informed water release rules (called "ecosystem water rules" in this study) on two VRE scenarios (current renewable energy levels and higher renewable energy levels) using six weather years for each scenario (2008-2013). CRITFC developed the ecosystem water rules, which capture a portion of the changes they recommend for CRB hydropower operations. These analyses use a water resource planning model (OASIS) and a production cost model (PLEXOS) to simulate CRB reservoir cascade and Western Interconnection power grid operation.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE); Bonneville Power Administration
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 2478602
• Report Number(s): NREL/TP--6A40-91263; DOE/GO--102024-6473; MainId:93041; UUID:cff077f4-e148-4589-93cd-86796ce6bd77; MainAdminId:74286
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

13 HYDRO ENERGY
CRITFC
Columbia River Basin
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
Nez Perce
Umatilla
Warm Springs
Yakama
fish
hydropower
operations