DOE awards $5.5 million to 11 national laboratory projects to cut hydropower permitting time and costs

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office announced on August 28 that it’s directing $5.5 million to 11 national laboratory projects aimed at cutting the time and cost of licensing and relicensing hydropower facilities across the country. The funding, distributed under the agency’s Streamlining Hydropower Permitting lab call, targets one of the industry’s persistent bottlenecks: a regulatory process that can stretch decades and demand expensive environmental studies before a single permit is granted or renewed.

DOE announces $5.5 million for 11 hydropower permitting projects

The Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office — known as H2O — issued the Streamlining Hydropower Permitting lab call earlier in 2026. Selected projects carry work timelines ranging from one to three years. H2O Director Nichole Fitzgerald framed the investment in historical terms. “For over 100 years, hydropower has been a pillar of American energy, supplying reliable, affordable power across the nation,” she said, adding that keeping permitting costs down for operators lets them pass savings along to ratepayers.

The projects span fish passage innovation, environmental monitoring, mitigation technologies, and more. They aim to deliver tools, datasets, and plain-language resources that make the licensing process faster and less burdensome at key decision points.

The H2O lab call focused specifically on shortening the time stakeholders take to reach consensus during these reviews, which is often where delays pile up.

Why permitting reform is needed: FERC licenses and their costs

Hydropower permits issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission run between 30 and 50 years. Before a facility gets or keeps one of those licenses, though, it has to complete rigorous and expensive impact and evaluation studies, according to the Department of Energy — a process that can eat up years and significant resources.

The H2O lab call focused specifically on shortening the time stakeholders take to reach consensus during these reviews, which is often where delays pile up. Multiple agencies, tribes, environmental groups, and operators all have to agree on findings before a project can move forward. When permitting costs climb, operators may pass those expenses on to electricity ratepayers. Reducing friction in the process isn’t just a bureaucratic goal — it’s a consumer cost issue.

What the 11 projects will do: Tools, data, and AI

The selected projects attack the permitting bottleneck from several angles. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will develop a fish passage risk screening tool that helps hydropower plants scale site-specific fish monitoring data to the broader levels regulators care about. PNNL will also lead an effort — with Idaho National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory — to unify the National Fish Passage Dataset and the Hydropower Technology Catalog into a single Knowledge Hub, making it easier for operators to find and compare fish passage solutions.

Artificial intelligence plays a notable role in several projects. Los Alamos National Laboratory, supported by Sandia National Laboratories, will combine field sampling, drone surveys, remote sensing, and machine-learning models to improve forecasting of harmful algal blooms in reservoirs. Better bloom predictions could reduce costly compliance headaches during licensing reviews.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will build a national, geospatially referenced recreation database by pulling and curating data from FERC documents using AI. That database feeds into ORNL’s existing inventory of U.S. hydropower plants, giving planners and regulators a clearer picture of recreation-related flow requirements.

Two projects will test American tools in Norwegian hydropower systems before deploying them domestically. PNNL and Argonne National Laboratory will trial the PNNL Flow Tradeoff Tool in Norway; the National Laboratory of the Rockies will test pumped storage hydropower modeling tools with Norwegian data. Norway’s well-developed hydropower research infrastructure offers a low-risk environment to refine tools before they’re used in U.S. licensing proceedings.

Tribal and community-focused work among selected projects

Several funded projects center on tribal interests and smaller communities. PNNL will synthesize six years of juvenile Pacific lamprey studies across the Lower Snake and Columbia River hydropower system. Pacific lamprey carry significant tribal cultural importance, and the resulting Action Plan will serve the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, tribal partners including the Yakama Nation, and regional non-federal hydropower managers.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is taking a different approach with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. That project will develop a planning framework integrating power generation potential, hydrological modeling, tribal fish and cultural resource priorities, and multi-jurisdictional permitting requirements — all aimed at enabling distributed micro-hydropower development on the EBCI reservation.

In Alaska, PNNL will work with the City and Borough of Sitka Electric Department to improve hydropower operations for the municipally owned utility. The project delivers better data management systems and forecasting tools, and it’s designed to be transferable — meaning other Alaska utilities with hydropower assets could adopt the same strategies.

Background: Hydropower’s place in U.S. energy and the role of national laboratories

Hydropower is one of the oldest and largest sources of renewable electricity in the United States. Many existing facilities are approaching relicensing or will face it soon, making streamlined permitting a priority across the entire sector — not just for new projects.

National laboratories are well-positioned for this kind of work, able to bring together federal agencies, academic institutions, tribal nations, and private operators around shared tools and datasets. Several of the 11 projects reflect that model directly, with in-kind support from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, the Bureau of Reclamation, and NOAA, as well as private operators like Duke Energy and FirstLight Power Services.

Bottom line: the $5.5 million investment funds 11 projects across multiple national laboratories, targeting fish passage, environmental monitoring, AI-assisted data tools, tribal energy planning, and community utility support. All 11 share the same underlying goal — reducing the time and cost burden of a permitting system that governs some of the country’s most enduring energy infrastructure.

Kelly Lippke

Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.