U.S. Department of Energy Hydropower Collegiate Competition (HCC)
Team Name: Pioneering Potential
University of Wisconsin-Platteville, Platteville, Wisconsin
What is your team hoping to get out of your Hydropower Collegiate Competition (HCC) experience this year?
We are most excited to learn more about the broader field of water resources as well as the nuances of hydropower by building connections with professionals in the industry and participating in the design and siting contests.
Why should people care about hydropower?
Hydropower can create clean and sustainable energy while serving a multitude of purposes that are beneficial to a local community and economy.
Describe your project, objectives, and game plan.
Our game plan is to better understand and bring about change in our local community. Through the Siting, Design, and Community Connections Challenges we will focus on non-powered dams within 200 miles of UW-Platteville with the potential for adding hydropower plus pumped hydropower storage.
What are you doing to ensure your team is diverse and inclusive?
Many of our team members are also enrolled in a hydropower course together, where we are conducting interviews, making site visits, and learning more about one another. Our diverse engineering backgrounds, including civil, environmental, and mechanical, with recruits from electrical, marketing, and business, help us see the same challenge in unique ways.
What are you most looking forward to with this year's competition?
We are excited to learn more about the hydropower industry and how our generation can play a role in its success. We look forward to speaking with industry experts, visiting dam sites throughout New York state, and diving into case studies and reports as we develop our final submission.
What inspired your team’s name?
Our team’s name, Pioneering Potential, combines our school mascot, Pioneer Pete, with the significant potential for hydropower to sustainably power the U.S. Great Lakes region in the Midwest.
Is there something your team does together that others might find strange or fun?
Many of us are in a class specifically focused on hydropower and will interview professionals and potentially take a few field trips to learn more about hydropower.
What does the future of Earth look like with your hydropower solution in it?
Our vision for the future includes a growing awareness for renewable energy (specifically hydropower) in the Driftless Region of the Midwest. We hope that our hydropower solution inspires young STEM students to consider the potential for clean energy and hydropower and that the project created can be used as a template to build win-win solutions for communities across clean energy and water conservation.
The Pioneering Potential team includes (from left to right): Anika Zins, Evelyn Barta, Kurtis Clark, Cody Holbach, Zeke Fredricks, Logan Krause, Diyatha Premaratne, Hunter Rogers, Sam Goodnetter, Dr. Austin Polebitski. (not pictured: Cole Portman, Brandyn Voegeli, and Janelle Skoyen Hestekin. Photo from Pioneering Potential, Unviersity of Wisconsin-Platteville.
Follow our team on social media or our website.
The team’s Instagram (@pioneeringpotential) post’s club updates and events, and the team’s Pioneer Involvement webpage (https://uwplatt.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/waterpower) directs university students to our club.
