Hydroboost: Optimizing Hydropower Hybrid Systems

Idaho National Laboratory Computer Science/Mathematics, 2025–26

Liaison(s): Hill Balliet ’18, Dr. Tyler Phillips
Advisor(s): Emma Beer
Students(s): Josh Ilachinski (TL-S), Miranda Lau (TL-F), Simone Johnson, Alspencer Omondi, Cole Ellsworth

Idaho National Laboratory has developed HydroBoost, an optimization tool that predicts the revenue of a hydropower–battery hybrid system. HydroBoost aims to use energy, weather and water forecast data to improve these predictions, though this data is not easily accessible. Additionally, running HydroBoost can be unintuitive for users who are not comfortable using the command line. To address these barriers, the Clinic team created an open access, human-readable database of forecasts and a user-friendly web application to run HydroBoost.