U.S. Department of Energy Hydropower Collegiate Competition (HCC)
Team Name: Yale Hydropower Association
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Industry Connections Enable Yale Students To Imagine Improvements to a Connecticut Hydropower Plant
Why is your team participating in the Hydropower Collegiate Competition (HCC)?
Our team members want to be active participants in the renewable energy transition. HCC gives us this opportunity, along with the experience of diving deep into a case study to understand hydropower in depth and the chance to learn directly from industry professionals.
What is your vision for a clean energy future?
We envision a future energy grid that pairs renewable energy generation with energy storage. This may mean solar power and wind energy provide initial generation while hydropower stores energy via pumped storage hydropower. We also want to ensure that energy storage has a low environmental impact over its lifecycle.
Describe your project, objectives, and game plan.
We are doing a case study of the Rocky River Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Plant on the Housatonic River in Connecticut. Each of our team members oversees some part of the case study analysis. We will imagine possible improvements to the Rocky River plant, propose potential changes to the energy-generation pattern at this facility, and compare the costs and revenue of our plans to determine the feasibility of each proposal.
Who has your team connected with in the hydropower industry? What lessons have you learned from them, and how can your team apply those lessons to the competition?
So far, our team has met with Joe Enrico from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, John Etzel from the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Thomas Haag from TWH Associates LLC. Joe Enrico helped us compare Rocky River with other pumped hydropower storage facilities in Connecticut and taught us how the licensing process enables community education on hydropower. From John Etzel, we learned how the relationship between hydropower and other renewable energy sources is often complementary rather than competitive, because hydropower provides grid services that enable the use of other renewables. Thomas Haag helped us establish a framework for evaluating technological efficiency at hydropower facilities.
What does your team do exceptionally well? How will you use your team’s strengths to your advantage in the competition?
Our team is multidisciplinary, with majors ranging from East Asian studies to physics, and yet, we are all dedicated to applying our knowledge to hydropower. Our academic diversity enables us to think creatively about challenges from different perspectives. This works well for us because HCC requires that a team exhibit a host of different skills and think creatively, giving each team member an opportunity to learn and an opportunity to lead.
Members of the Yale Hydropower Association include (from left): Madeline Bartels, Selin Gören, Neal Ma, Ruth Lee, Mark Ge, Revant Kantamneni, Katrina Starbird, and Shayaan Subzwari. Photo from the Yale Hydropower Association, Yale University
