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Revolutionizing Water-Energy Infrastructure Resilience through Distributed Sensing and Digital Twins

This white paper addresses the intersection of Water for Energy and Energy for Water, proposing foundational technology to enhance the resilience and operational longevity of critical national assets, including hydropower facilities and marine energy systems. The core challenge i...

Luo, L.

Unlocking Small-scale Hydropower using Water Infrastructure for National Energy Security

Reliable local energy generation and long-duration energy storage are critical to balancing peak demands and providing distributed emergency backup near both urban and rural populations. However, small-scale (< 10 MW) hydropower faces barriers, including siting, permitting, water ...

Stokes-Draut, J., Taylor, M., and Rao, P.

Integrated Energy-Water Data for Cross-Sector Resilience

Disjointed management of water and energy systems has created systemic vulnerabilities in the United States, particularly as aging infrastructure, population and industrial growth, and severe weather events strain both sectors. High-quality, standardized datasets like those provid...

Hodson, A., Stokes-Draut, J., Chini, C., Rao, P., and Semrod, K.

Harnessing water system flexibility for grid resilience

With new critical infrastructure that require uninterrupted power supplies (such as data centers that support the AI boom) and a rising share of intermittent generation sources on the grid, there is a growing need for flexibility in grid resources which can ramp up or down quickly...

Szinai, J., and Callaway, D.

Sensor Enabled Cured-in-Place (CIPP) Liners: Cutting Leaks Today, Powering Digital Twins and Real-Time Detection for Tomorrow's Resilient Intelligent Water Distribution Systems

Municipal water accounts for roughly 12% of total consumption in the United States (EPA and AWWA averages), yet an estimated 14% of this treated supply is lost through distribution line leaks (AWWA national average). Because municipal water carries significant embedded energy and ...

Robinson, G., Luo, L., Earni, S., and DeJong, M.

Integrated Water-Energy Resilience Research and Testbeds

Water availability increasingly constrains the reliability and flexibility of water-dependent energy systems, including hydropower, thermoelectric generation, and grid operations. Hydrologic extremes, shifting demand, aging infrastructure, and cross-sector pressures are intensifyi...

Negron-Juarez, R., Amusat, O., Koven, C., and Viers, J.

Material Science Driven Water Technology Innovation

The white paper explores multiple Energy-Water Resilience (EWR) topics, including water for energy, energy for water, and their intersections. It proposes low-cost, scalable water-based material processes to advance water technologies through materials innovation. The existing cha...

Chang, C., and Ajami, N.

AI-Enhanced Hydropower Systems: Smart Dams for a Resilient Future

This paper focuses on water-energy, using AI for smart, holistic hydropower operations to enhance water for energy resilience. The existing challenges include (a) increasing demand for water and electricity, requiring a shift to flexible, real-time hydropower operations due to ch...

Varadharajan, C., Ajami, N., Brodie, E., Ciulla, F., Falco, N., Feldman, D., Newcomer, M., Dwivedi, D., Li, Y., Nakata, R., Nakata, N., Nico, P., Williams, K., Mahoney, M., Ramakrishnan, L., and Cholia, S.

Minimizing Costs and Risk for Rural Water Systems

Many rural and remote populations either lack access to treated water supplies or are served by water systems that are at risk from increasing contaminant concentrations, aging infrastructure, unreliable supplies, and/or groundwater depletion. Recent research has shown that these ...

Hendrickson, T., Rao, P., Stokes-Draut, J., Gonzalez, S., and Fiske, P.