  In the evolving power system, where new renewable resources continually
displace conventional generation, conventional hydropower resources can be an
important asset that helps to maintain reliability and flexibility. Varying
climatic patterns do affect the operational pattern of hydropower. This would
potentially play a vital role in meeting and delivering energy and meeting
climate policy needs. Hydropower is one of the oldest forms of renewable energy
resources, however, its dependency on water availability and other constraints
are not well represented in power system steady state and dynamic models. This
leads to multiple gaps in operations planning especially due to high
intermittent renewable generation. Operating constraints and lack of
high-quality data often become a barrier to hydropower modeling which leads to
inconsistencies in reliability and operational planning studies resulting in
unintentional blackouts or unforeseen situations. This paper identifies some of
the gaps in hydro-based generation representation in steady-state and dynamic
models and provides recommendations for their mitigation.
