DOE’s Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office Announces Funding for National Laboratory Projects to Streamline American Hydropower Permitting

WASHINGTON--The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office (H2O) today awarded $5.5 million in total funding to 11 U.S. National Laboratory projects that will expedite and reduce the cost of licensing and relicensing American hydropower facilities. The lab call, issued earlier in 2026, focused on projects that would shorten the time that stakeholders take to reach consensus when discussing a given project.

"For over 100 years, hydropower has been a pillar of American energy, supplying reliable, affordable power across the nation," said H2O Director Nichole Fitzgerald. "The projects selected today will not only help ensure the continued operation of America's hydropower plants but also keep permitting and relicensing costs down for operators so they can pass those saving along to ratepayers."

The projects chosen under the Streamlining Hydropower Permitting lab call are designed to make a tangible impact in the lives of everyday Americans, as well as hydropower owners and operators, with work timelines ranging from 1-3 years. They cover topics including innovation in fish passage, environmental monitoring, effective mitigation technologies, and other hydropower stakeholder needs. The projects funded by this lab call will help streamline licensing and relicensing at key points in the process through tools, datasets, and plain-language information resources.

Permits for hydropower facilities issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission run between 30 and 50 years but require rigorous and expensive impact and evaluation studies to receive and maintain their license. The selected projects will help overcome these barriers by advancing tools to help navigate these processes.

Click on each project title to learn more about them and how they will help maintain affordable, reliable, and secure American hydropower.

• Assessing the Impacts of "Add-On" Pumped Storage Hydropower to Expedite Federal and State Regulatory Reviews

  Idaho National Lab will work with partners from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to develop a report structured like a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement that defines "add-on pumped storage hydropower," clarifies the categories of potential impacts that are relevant and similar between designs, and provides a process to evaluate potential environmental impacts of "add-on" pumped storage (a type of retrofit where a second reservoir is added to an existing dam to increase storage). This will create a citable resource that serves as the starting place for site specific assessments, resulting in more efficient federal and state regulatory reviews-a top industry need. This project will also receive in-kind support from the National Hydropower Association and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

• Cumulative Fish Passage Risk Index

  The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will develop a fish passage risk screening tool as well as a method to identify solutions for monitoring and mitigation. The project will assist hydropower plants with fish species of concern by providing a method to scale site-specific information to larger scales of interest to regulators when setting requirements for fish passage survival. The project team will leverage investments from the United States Army Corps of Engineers in fish monitoring in the federal Columbia River Hydropower System to support the development of less costly tools for the entire U.S. that do not require large monitoring investments. This project will receive additional in-kind support from partners at Grant County Public Utility District, FirstLight Power Services, Eagle Creek Renewable Energy, Technical University of Munich, Carleton University, and ANDRITZ Hydro.

• Integrated Fish Passage Knowledge Hub

  The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, with Idaho National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory partners, will unify and expand the National Fish Passage Dataset by adding data about studies, and the Hydropower Technology Catalog by adding information on innovative upstream and downstream fish passage solutions. This will create a single, evidence-based Knowledge Hub resource, helping hydropower stakeholders efficiently find, compare, and select the most safe, timely, and efficient fish passage technologies to meet regulatory requirements. This project will receive in-kind support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency's National Marine Fisheries Society.

• Water and Hydropower Recreational Dataset

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and subcontractor American Whitewater will create a national, geospatially referenced database that identifies types of recreation in hydropower reservoirs and adjacent rivers and provides recreation-related flow requirements to the ORNL "Existing Hydropower Assets" dataset, an inventory of U.S. hydropower plants. This project will curate AI-extracted information and data from FERC documents to support hydropower planning, licensing conditions, trade-off assessments, and stakeholder decision-making. This project will also receive in-kind support from Duke Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

• Operation Controls on Nutrient Cycling in Southwestern Hydropower Reservoirs

  Los Alamos National Laboratory, supported by Sandia National Laboratories, will integrate field sampling, drone surveys, remote sensing, and advanced machine-learning AI models to demonstrate how improved forecasting of reservoir nutrient dynamics can reduce harmful algal blooms. The project will produce actionable guidance and decision support tools for hydropower reservoir operations to be used in permitting and compliance activities. This project will receive in-kind support from United States Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the New Mexico Environmental Department.

• Synthesis of Juvenile Pacific Lamprey Passage, Survival, and Predation Risk in the Lower Columbia River Basin

  The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will synthesize six years of juvenile Pacific lamprey (a species of concern with tribal cultural significance) studies across the Lower Snake and Columbia River hydropower system to identify fish migration bottlenecks, quantify fish survival and predation risk, and deliver a system-wide, decision-ready Action Plan for United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), tribal partners, and regional non-federal hydropower managers that supports tribal interests. This project will receive in-kind support from USACE, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, and the Yakama Nation.

• Clear Headwaters: A Tribal-Led Model for Permitting-Ready Micro-Hydropower

  The Oak Ridge National Laboratory, working with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), will develop a framework that integrates power generation potential, hydrological modeling, tribal fish and cultural resources protection priorities, and multi-jurisdictional permitting requirements into a plan for distributed micro-hydropower on the EBCI reservation.

• Maximization of United States Army Corps of Engineers hydropower generation through modernization of water management tools

  The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, working with United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), will significantly improve computational efficiency in USACE's HEC-ResSim and related modeling tools to optimize power generation with an application of novel AI tools to show how to better meet operational constraints. This will enable more accurate generation estimates and faster ensemble-based reservoir operations analysis.

• Exploring Instream Flow Design with the Flow Tradeoff Tool

  The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Argonne National Laboratory, working with the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, will test the PNNL Flow Tradeoff Tool in Norwegian hydropower systems. This project leverages the expertise and data available in the Norwegian hydropower research institutes to enable the technology transfer of a decision support tool. The use of Norway as a partner is key, because the Flow Tradeoff Tool can be openly tested in a low-risk environment to better inform American hydropower owners, operators, and developers.

• Analysis and Best Practices for Pumped Storage Hydropower Siting and Capacity Expansion in the U.S. and Norway

  The National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), working with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Renew Hydro), will utilize a suite of NLR developed pumped storage hydropower (PSH) modeling tools with Norway data to clarify development opportunities and best practices for siting PSH projects. The work will refine standardized, data-driven methods and analytical approaches that support clear and efficient licensing pathways in both countries. The use of Norway as a partner is key, because the PSH modeling tools can be openly tested in a low-risk environment to American PSH owners, operators, and developers. Norway is developing new PSH facility and this project with facilitate information exchanges.

• Securing Hydropower for Alaska's Remote Communities

  The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, working with the City and Borough of Sitka Electric Department in Alaska, will help Sitka's municipally owned utility improve hydropower operations through better data management, new forecasting tools, and transferable strategies that strengthen decision-making, workforce capacity, and long-term energy planning. This provides a transferable method for other Alaska utilities with hydropower.

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