Sam Bockenhauer leads the HydroWIRES Initiative in DOE's Water Power Technologies Office. As the office's $15M grid integration program, HydroWIRES (https://energy.gov/hydrowires) focuses on understanding the value hydropower can provide to the power system, how best to operate hydropower in a flexible way to integrate variable renewables such as wind and solar, and what technology innovations are needed to enable more flexible operation.