JUNE 2021

Q&A WITH HYDROPASSAGE TOOLSET LICENSEE ANDRITZ HYDRO

We asked Pedro Romero-Gomez (pictured left), a research engineer with Andritz Hydro in Linz, Austria, to share his experience in licensing the Biological Performance Assessment (BioPA) toolset and the Hydropower Biological Evaluation Toolset (HBET).

Why was Andritz Hydro interested in the BioPA and HBET toolsets?

Romero-Gomez: Andritz Hydro delivers turbines and electromechanical equipment for hydropower production. When confronted with the need to provide a turbine design that enhances flow conditions for fish passage, we incorporate the widely known design concepts for fish-enhanced turbines, including thicker leading edges, longer blades, and minimized gap runners. But this is only a qualitative enhancement. We are interested in the BioPA and HBET toolsets primarily because they allow us to quantitatively estimate the potential benefits of the design concepts. BioPA does this at early stages of design, while HBET does it after turbines have been commissioned and are in operation. This ability to evaluate fish-related properties with the tools is advantageous focus because we would like to accelerate the development of products with a real environmental benefit in the field.

How have the tools helped Andritz?
Romero-Gomez: BioPA has been used in the analysis of fish-related properties for various internal research and development projects. This includes the development of a fully fish-passage-driven turbine design for which the top priority is the maximization of fish survival rates. The development of this product, known as a Fish Propeller, needed iterative BioPA-based assessments for evaluating the trade-offs between power production and fish survival in a quantitative manner.

Andritz has also used BioPA, HBET, and Sensor Fish for the development of commercial projects. In 2017, Andritz designed a fish-friendly turbine at the Eddersheim Hydropower Plant in Germany as part of a pilot project to enhance fish survival through hydropower stations in the region. During development, BioPA was implemented in both the original and new turbines and showed a potential reduction of eel and juvenile salmonid mortality due to collisions in the new unit. 

Last year, project partners conducted field testing with live fish and Sensor Fish to compare original and new turbines. During test planning, BioPA was deployed to provide project partners with information necessary to address where fish samples would be released for collecting representative outcomes as well as the size of the fish samples. 

Andritz deployed BioPA at projects in Laos to evaluate fish survival rates of Andritz’s proposed turbine geometries for the potential client. The client was using this evaluation to report to the regional environmental authorities as part of the permitting process. 

How have you worked with the HydroPASSAGE technical team to understand how to use/apply the toolsets? 
Romero-Gomez: We have the great fortune to regularly obtain assistance from the HydroPASSAGE technical team to incorporate the PNNL-generated knowledge and tools in the subject into our industry practices. An Andritz team participated in a PNNL-organized training workshop on BioPA for turbine suppliers.

Recently, Rajesh Singh has provided support for the implementation of BioPA version 3 using particles as surrogates for fish in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models.

We acquired a license from HBET last year and will use it to post-process data collected with Andritz-owned Sensor Fish (supplied by Advanced Telemetry Systems). Daniel Deng and team provided two one-hour introductory sessions for the HBET tool last year. A workshop is planned to continue the training in June 2021.

How you would you describe the process of becoming a licensee?
Romero-Gomez:I would describe it as a process that includes all the steps that we also experience in acquiring software licenses from other suppliers, meaning, it’s neither easier nor more cumbersome than in our previous, similar experiences. Responses from the HydroPASSAGE team are prompt and clear in all instances, which facilitates an otherwise complex process. In the case of Andritz, special considerations about timing and information requests have been timely and fully addressed by the HydroPASSAGE team, for which we are sincerely grateful! 

LARA ASTON ON ENGAGING WITH THE HYDROPOWER COMMUNITY

For the last four years, Lara Aston has been researching and developing ways to meet the needs of the hydropower community. 

Aston’s expertise comes from working directly with hydropower owners, operators, and regulators to improve facility operations. She is a research scientist and project manager for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with 20 years of experience in ecology and the environmental effects of energy use. 

As the HydroPASSAGE project manager, Aston meets with stakeholders to demonstrate how two toolsets can advance hydropower for fish and industry. HydroPASSAGE’s  Biological Performance Assessment (BioPA) toolset and  Hydropower Biological Evaluation Toolset (HBET) provide information to help design, operate, and evaluate hydropower facilities that support fish habitats. BioPA informs the design and operation of hydropower turbines by relating CFD models of hydraulic conditions to known impacts to fish.HBET relates data collected by field-based sensors, including Sensor Fish, to biological response models to biological response models for downstream fish passage at hydropower facilities.

Over the course of 2021, Aston has had conversations with hydropower users in the United States, Canada, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Brazil, China, and England to discuss their specific needs and challenges associated with the biological performance of turbines and other structures and fish passage around their facilities. Users include small hydropower companies, large equipment manufacturers, regulators, and natural resource agencies.

Aston facilitates the process of connecting users with the technical team to organize customized, hands-on workshops related to the toolset of interest, BioPA, HBET, or both. She also helps users connect with the HydroPASSAGE commercialization manager Sara Hunt to obtain a free 30-day trial for the HydroPASSAGE toolsets, which are available for potential users who participate in a virtual workshop before the end of the September. The workshops are also available for current licensees who might need additional one-on-one support with the technical teams to enhance the use of the toolsets. 

“Basically this year’s effort is focused on getting tools into the hands of users to give them the opportunity to apply it on their own and to give them hands-on experience working with the technical team,” Aston said. “This way they’re able to see the utility of the tools and apply it to their unique situation.” 

The one-on-one workshops offer flexibility in scheduling and allow the team to focus the workshop on the specific needs of the user. This allows stakeholders to share information with the technical team without divulging anything proprietary to competitors.

The HydroPASSAGE project is a research and development collaboration between engineers and biologists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest and Oak Ridge National Laboratories that is finding solutions to improve downstream fish passage conditions through turbines and other hydropower structures. Learn more at hydropassage.org.