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Idaho National Laboratory

Virtual Hydropower Prospector

Welcome to VHP!

This geographic information system (GIS) tool was designed to assist you in locating and assessing natural stream water energy resources in the United States. The first step in using this tool is to select one of the 20 hydrologic regions using the Region Selector. Each region selected will open a new map window for that region.

VHP uses popup windows. It will not operate properly if window popup is disabled. Select the Popup Enabling button for instructions on how to enable window popup.

VHP displays the locations of U.S. natural stream water energy resources and their gross power potential as determined by an analytical process. It also shows you the locations of feasible potential hydropower projects which have been determined using a set of feasibility criteria. For these potential projects, a more realistic power potential has been estimated using realistic development criteria. Context features such as cities, roads, power infrastructure, land use, etc. can be displayed to assist you in performing preliminary site assessments. VHP uses data sources not requiring a license for public display. A list of data sources is accessible by selecting the Data Sources button.

The location of features and the associated attribute information are for indication only. Actual on-site locations, measurements, and evaluations must be undertaken to verify information presented by VHP and assess a site’s feasibility for development. Disclaimers regarding the use of VHP are accessible by selecting the Disclaimers button.

VHP was developed by the Idaho National Laboratory in support of the U.S. Department of Energy Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program under contract DE-AC07-051D14517. The methods used to identify the water energy resource sites displayed by this tool and to estimate their gross potential are described in Water Energy Resources of the United States with Emphasis on Low Head/Low Power Resources, DOE/ID-11111, April 2004. (Main Report, — 3.7MB PDF, Appendix A — 12.4MB PDF, Appendix B, Part 1 — 10.6MB PDF, Appendix B, Part 2 — 11.2MB PDF, Appendix C — 217kB PDF) The methods and criteria that were used to identify feasible potential hydropower projects and estimate their power potential using a set of development criteria are described in Feasibility Assessment of the Water Energy Resources of the United States for Low Power and Small Hydroelectric Plants, DOE/ID-11263, to be published January 2006.

Introduction for New Users

VHP is a GIS tool. You do not need to possess a software license to use this tool. It is being served to you from a computer at the Idaho National Laboratory.

To ensure reasonable response time, you must select one of the 20 U.S. hydrologic regions using the Region Selector button (don’t do it yet – read on). Since VHP uses popup windows, you must be sure that window popup is enabled for your Web browser (e.g. Windows Internet Explorer). If you need instructions on getting the status of your popup window blocker or temporarily disabling it, select the Popup Enabling link.

Map Legend

When you select a region for viewing, VHP will display a map of the region. The map will have certain basic sets of features “turned on”. On the left-hand side of the VHP desktop is a legend which lists all of the available feature sets. The legend is provided in folders to allow it to be minimized. Left click on a folder to see the feature sets inside.

Features are displayed by clicking on (checking) the Feature Select box next to the feature set name. Below the feature set name is the symbol or symbols that are used to display these features on the map. IMPORTANT: Feature sets whose Feature Select boxes have been checked are only displayed on the map after you select the Refresh Map button above the Legend. The Refresh Map button ensures that what you see on the map is what you selected in the legend at all times.

Now that you know how to control what is displayed on the map, you need to understand one other important part of the legend – the active feature set. For each feature set in the legend there is a radio button between the Feature Select box and the name of the feature set. This is the Active Feature button. Only one feature set can be active at a time. What’s it used for? It tells VHP which type of features you want information about using the function buttons on the right side of the VHP desktop. The features belonging to the active feature set have to be displayed on the map concurrently with operating some of the function buttons.

Function Buttons

? HELP, accesses the online VHP User’s Guide. The table of contents of this document contains links to take you right to the topic you want to know about.

Thumbnail Map On/Off lets you turn the thumbnail map in the upper left corner of the map on or off. The thumbnail map is keyed to the map view. It shows you what part of the country you’re looking at.

The Zoom In through Full Extent buttons control the amount of real estate you’re looking at in the map. Note that some features are zoom controlled. That is, they only appear when you’re zoomed in to a small area. These features [e.g., National Hydrography Dataset (NHD)] are so pervasive that they will cover the whole viewing area if viewed at a larger map extent - they will be all you see.

The Identify through Query buttons, allow you to ask questions to obtain detailed information about, or to accent the display of, a group of active features. Remember these buttons respond only for the Active Feature Set. The attribute data for the specific features you asked about is displayed in a table at the bottom of the VHP desktop. The contents of this information table can be copied to an Excel spreadsheet by highlighting the information and pasting it into the spreadsheet.

The Clear Pins and Clear Select buttons remove feature locator pins and feature highlighting displayed on the map, respectively.

With Measure you can measure distances on the map. A distance readout window at the top of the map view shows the distance between two points you select. It will also tell you the cumulative distance between a series of points you chose like along segments of a power line or around a circumference.

Print takes you to a form to specify the elements of a printable map image. You can print any map in the map view with or without a title and with or without a legend. You can also paste the map image into an electronic document or slide.

Viewing Multiple Regions

What if the area you’re interested in encompasses more than one region? Well, the best we can do for you for now is give you the ability to open map viewing windows for multiple regions at the same time. Each time you select a region using the Region Selector, you get a new map viewing window. Tiling these windows will allow you to go back and forth between regions. This is a response time tradeoff we’ve had to make for now.

Hope this helps getting you started. Good luck prospecting. The country’s natural stream water energy resources are at your finger tips!

Contact:
Hydropower,