The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) National Hydropower Asset Assessment Program (NHAAP) is an integrated energy, water, and ecosystem research effort for sustainable hydroelectricity generation and water management. Our partners include state and federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, technology and resource developers, utilities, and researchers. ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for DOE.
Project Description
NHAAP was initiated in 2010, starting with gathering, organizing, and validating the stream network, facility configuration data, historic generation, and water availability data necessary to trend the production and capacity of US hydropower for the DOE Water Power Program.
These data are derived from federally chartered database efforts and include the Reclamation/USACE HydroAmp, FERC eLibrary and DAMS Database, EIA Forms 860/923 Powerplant and Generation Database, USACE National Inventory of Dams (NID), USGS/EPA National Hydrography Dataset (NHD), and USGS National Water Information Service (NWIS).
NHAAP is designed to integrate these data at various scales and provide a tool for strategic planning and decision making to assess the current value of the nation’s hydroelectric infrastructure, quantify the amounts of energy that could be feasibly extracted, and provide an environmental attribution resource for the DOE Water Power Program.
