Among the research tools is an aqua channel which is an indoor laboratory flume where fish behaviour can be studied in detail. It has been constructed to provide the hydropower industry and public authorities with means of better determining the effects of hydropeaking. An exact estimate of the snow reservoir is therefore important for planning the power generation on both the short and long term. Manual methods of measuring the snow are being replaced by others which involve a snow radar mounted on a snowmobile and satellite observations. The mobile snow radar provides good data of the snow-water equivalent and the spatial distribution of the snow.
Satellite images provide information about the extent of snow-covered area.
It is important to have reliable information about the conditions associated with dam safety, particularly as the consequences of a dambreak represent one of the major risks in a hydropower system. Nine hundred Norwegian dams where the risk is defined to be above a minimum level must be examined with regard to the potential consequences of a flood wave resulting from dambreak. The River System Simulator has been used to determine a minimum required flow on a stretch of the river, where according to the plans, the flow will be reduced. The analysis is based on field data collected during periods of controlled discharge in the river. One of the problems in Norway is the low level of public funding in energy research, and what is worse, the figures are falling, said Trygve Riis of the Research Council of Norway.