Project Overview test
The Hydropower Collegiate Competition (HCC) is an annual event sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) in order to engage young adults and foster interest in hydropower. The DOE also sponsors two other competitions: the Collegiate Wind Competition (CWC) and Marine Energy Collegiate Competition (MECC), all intent on expanding renewable energy as a field. The HCC specifically focuses on the development of energy generation and storage mechanisms primarily involving fresh water, as opposed to using wind or sea water with the CWC and MECC respectively. As the event organizers described it, “[hydropower] provides 37% of total U.S. renewable electricity generation and 93% of grid-scale energy storage,” with immense potential for expansion as energy demand grows and renewable energy goals are push further towards completion.
The Hydropower Collegiate Competition for 2025 is focused primarily on the energy regulation and storage aspects of hydropower. Our goal is to design a full closed loop, pumped, hydropower storage system (PSH) with potential generation of up to 1 GW and the capacity to run for between 8 and 24 hours. This means our system will pump water between a pair of independent reservoirs that crucially do not connect to natural waterways. Using reservoirs at a height difference lets us pump water uphill to store power as gravitational potential, and to generate power the water is then run downhill through a turbine.
Also check out our About the Team, Gallery, and Documents pages linked below
Meet the Team
Documents and Deliverables
gallery
we also have an Electrical Engineering subteam on our project, check our their website at ceias.nau.edu/capstone/projects/EE/2025/HCC25-EE/
(the hyperlink broke because the code kept treating the website like a relative link because the page url doesn't start with an "https://www." and I couldn't figure out how to fix that.)
