Spring Sightings: Flowers and FAST Prize Teams Blossom
Spring is just around the corner, and with the budding blooms come sprouts of progress for our FAST competitors.
FAST, or the Furthering Advancements to Shorten Time (FAST) Commissioning for Pumped-Storage Hydropower Prize, is a challenge sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Water Power Technologies Office.
With a mission of reducing the time, cost, and risk associated with commissioning pumped-storage hydropower (PSH) projects, the FAST Prize challenged competitors to cultivate new ideas, designs, and strategies to accelerate PSH development and reduce commissioning time from the current 10 years to less than five.
Announced at the end of 2019, FAST Prize winners each received a share of $550,000 in cash and voucher support to transform their ideas from presentations into full-grown concepts.
Let's check in with our pumped-storage pioneers and take stock of their progress over the past month.
Digging Deep
The Nelson Energy-Midwest Energy Recycling Team won for proposing the use of tunnel-boring machines for underground excavation, which can reduce costs and decrease excavation time by 50%.
Over the last month, the team has been reaching out to potential project sponsors such as Fresh Energy, a local organization supporting renewable energy, as well as a local utility. The team also scheduled an upcoming meeting with a Minnesota public utility commissioner.
Additionally, Nelson Energy plans to deliver a presentation at the virtual Energy, Utility, and Environmental Conference in San Diego on April 21 and 22 in an effort to secure additional project sponsors.
According to Douglas Spaulding, President of Nelson Energy, “These activities support critical aspects of the future development process.”
Saving Cost and Carbon
Last month was busy for Team JT Livingston, which won for tunnel excavation innovations that will reduce PSH construction times, cost, and risks by up to 50%.
The team met with senior Navajo Nation managers to present a proposal of PSH as an economic development opportunity, completed a first draft of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission application for the proposed site, and made plans for additional meetings with the Nation. They presented a proposal to the Navajo Director of Water Resources on the community benefits of sharing the reservoir's excess pumping and pipeline capacity.
Also, under the auspices of a Public Service of New Mexico (PNM) request for information, the team presented scalable, 100% no-carbon portfolio models that deliver 40% lower annual cost than the utilities' current generation portfolio. Because PNM has the most aggressive no-carbon timeline (by 2040) of any U.S. utility, the level of interest in the team's work has been high.
The team also made some progress on environmental testing. They submitted plans to DOE outlining the types and locations for core sample testing, as well as the number of samples they would like to collect.
Finally, the team provided a spreadsheet analysis tool to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and DOE for their use in developing baseline simulation models.
Modeling Success
The Eldredge-Medina Team of Liberty University won for presenting a modular, closed-loop, scalable PSH system with a capacity range of 1–10 megawatts that is adaptable to sites without natural bodies of water.
The team is currently awaiting the receipt and approval of its cooperative research and development agreement, as well as a lease agreement for equipment that will enable the Liberty University School of Engineering to conduct physical testing.
The team continues to work on revising the water hammer calculations for locating and designing an appropriate surge tank (or tanks) for balancing pressure variations in the system. They expect to have calculated results for review by later in April.
The team has also been working on models to determine lifespan and strength of the bladder tank membrane.
Continue to check back into the fall as we follow these teams and their progress on accelerating PSH development and reducing commissioning time.