Established in 1994, HES-SO conducts academic and institutional activities in: design and visual arts, economy and services, engineering and architecture, music and performing arts, health, and social work. HES-SO delivers university tertiary level education and continuing education; supports applied research and development projects and encourages the transfer of knowledge driven by innovation and creativity.

The HES-SO hydroelectricity research group is an interdisciplinary team bringing together the numerical andexperimental competencies of several professors and researchers specialized inhydraulic machines, mechanics, materials science, electrical drive systems and data analysis with the aim of addressing global hydropower challenges.

The hydroelectricity research team, specialized in numerical simulations and on-site measurements, is providing services for hydropower plant owners and operators to increase the flexibility of existing or new hydropower plants using condition monitoring and analysis of the wear of power plant components, numerical simulations for hydraulic machines operations optimizations as well as digitalization and integration of machine learning tools.

As part of XFLEX HYDRO, HES-SO carries out the numerical simulations for four demonstrators. The teams looks at predicting hydraulic short circuit scenarios at Grand'Maison (France), demonstrating the added value of variable speed when increasing operating range at Alto Lindoso, Caniçada (Portugal) and increasing machine lifetime at Z’Mutt (Switzerland). HES SO also performs the field tests including on-board measurements for Z’Mutt.