Making waves: S&T researcher awarded $750,000 DOE grant focused on hydropower 

A Missouri S&T researcher is developing artificial intelligence and computational methods to help hydropower plant operators manage water and energy resources more efficiently and potentially pass on savings to consumers, with a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). 

The project will examine all types of hydropower systems, including run-of-river systems that generate power from the flow of rivers, pumped storage systems that generate energy by moving water between reservoirs and conventional systems that release water from dams.

For each of these systems, plant operators must consider multiple variables that could affect energy production and transmission to the grid. This is where Bo’s research team comes in.

This project follows others Bo has completed in the field of hydropower. In 2023, he led a team of researchers that earned second place in the Hydropower Operations Optimization (H2Os) Prize challenge sponsored by DOE. In 2020, DOE awarded him a $1 million grant to evaluate and improve the efficacy of pumped storage hydropower in wholesale electricity markets.

Bo says he will consider the current project a success if industry partners and other hydropower plant operators decide to integrate the tools his team is developing into their operations.

“This is research with clear practical applications that could have a positive impact on society,” he says. “Seeing that it theoretically works is one thing, but we want to see it deliver real benefits in the real world.”