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Kobos, Peter Holmes

Publications and source records attributed to Kobos, Peter Holmes.

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

PV Reliability Operations and Maintenance (PVROM) Database Initiative: 2014 Project Report

To fill a major knowledge gap, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) are jointly engaged in a multi-year research effort, supported by the Department of Energy’s SunShot Program, to examine real-world photovoltaic (PV) plant reliability and performance. Findings and analyses, derived from field data documented in the PV Reliability Operations Maintenance (PVROM) database tool as well as from convened workshops and working group discussions, are intended to inform industry best practices around the optimal operations and maintenance (O&M) of solar PV assets. To improve upon and evolve existing solar PV O&M approaches, this report: 1. Provides perspective on the concept of PV “system” reliability and how it can inform plant design, operations, and maintenance decisions that produce better long-term outcomes; 2. Describes the PVROM data collection tool, its technical capabilities, and results generated from database content in 2014; 3. Presents ongoing research efforts that are meant to drive the solar industry toward PV O&M best practice protocols and standards; and 4. Reflects on future areas of inquiry that can help better forecast plant health (e.g., system component availability, component wear out, etc.) and associated lifecycle costs. Ultimately, this report adds to the knowledge base of improving PV system O&M activities by discussing data collection and analysis techniques that can be used to better understand and enhance the reliability, availability, and performance of a photovoltaic system.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Timing Is everything: quantifying regulatory and market readiness levels for technology transition policy analysis

People save for retirement throughout their career because it is virtually impossible to save all you’ll need in retirement the year before you retire. Similarly, without installing incremental amounts of clean fossil, renewable or transformative energy technologies throughout the coming decades, a radical and immediate change will be near impossible the year before a policy goal is set to be in place. This notion of steady installation growth over acute installations of technology to meet policy goals is the core topic of discussion for this research. This research operationalizes this notion by developing the theoretical underpinnings of regulatory and market acceptance delays by building upon the common Technology Readiness Level (TRL) framework and offers two new additions to the research community. The new and novel Regulatory Readiness Level (RRL) and Market Readiness Level (MRL) frameworks were developed. These components, collectively called the Technology, Regulatory and Market (TRM) readiness level framework allow one to build new constraints into existing Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to address research questions such as, ‘To meet our desired technical and policy goals, what are the factors that affect the rate we must install technology to achieve these goals in the coming decades?’

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2014

The Water, Energy, and Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Simulation Model (WECSsim™): A User’s Manual

The Water, Energy, and Carbon Sequestration Simulation Model (WECSsim) is a national dynamic simulation model that calculates and assesses capturing, transporting, and storing CO 2 in deep saline formations from all coal and natural gas-fired power plants in the U.S. An overarching capability of WECSsim is to also account for simultaneous CO 2 injection and water extraction within the same geological saline formation. Extracting, treating, and using these saline waters to cool the power plant is one way to develop more value from using saline formations as CO 2 storage locations. WECSsim allows for both one-to-one comparisons of a single power plant to a single saline formation along with the ability to develop a national CO 2 storage supply curve and related national assessments for these formations. This report summarizes the scope, structure, and methodology of WECSsim along with a few key results. Developing WECSsim from a small scoping study to the full national-scale modeling effort took approximately 5 years. This report represents the culmination of that effort. The key findings from the WECSsim model indicate the U.S. has several decades' worth of storage for CO 2 in saline formations when managed appropriately. Competition for subsurface storage capacity, intrastate flows of CO 2 and water, and a supportive regulatory environment all play a key role as to the performance and cost profile across the range from a single power plant to all coal and natural gas-based plants' ability to store CO 2 . The overall system's cost to capture, transport, and store CO 2 for the national assessment range from $\$$74 to $\$$208 / tonne stored ($\$$96 to 272 / tonne avoided) for the first 25 to 50% of the 1126 power plants to between $\$$1,585 to well beyond $\$$2,000 / tonne stored ($\$$2,040 to well beyond $\$$2,000 / tonne avoided) for the remaining 75 to 100% of the plants. The latter range, while extremely large, includes all natural gas power plants in the U.S., many of which have an extremely low capacity factor and therefore relatively high system's cost to capture and store CO 2 .

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Timing is everything :

People save for retirement throughout their career because it is virtually impossible to save all you ll need in retirement the year before you retire. Similarly, without installing incremental amounts of clean fossil, renewable or transformative energy technologies throughout the coming decades, a radical and immediate change will be near impossible the year before a policy goal is set to be in place. Therefore, our research question is, To meet our desired technical and policy goals, what are the factors that affect the rate we must install technology to achieve these goals in the coming decades? Existing models do not include full regulatory constraints due to their often complex, and inflexible approaches to solve for optimal engineering instead of robust and multidisciplinary solutions. This project outlines the theory and then develops an applied software tool to model the laboratory-to-market transition using the traditional technology readiness level (TRL) framework, but develops subsequent and a novel regulatory readiness level (RRL) and market readiness level (MRL). This tool uses the ideally-suited system dynamics framework to incorporate feedbacks and time delays. Future energy-economic-environment models, regardless of their programming platform, may adapt this software model component framework or module to further vet the likelihood of new or innovative technology moving through the laboratory, regulatory and market space. The prototype analytical framework and tool, called the Technology, Regulatory and Market Readiness Level simulation model (TRMsim) illustrates the interaction between technology research, application, policy and market dynamics as they relate to a new or innovative technology moving from the theoretical stage to full market deployment. The initial results that illustrate the model s capabilities indicate for a hypothetical technology, that increasing the key driver behind each of the TRL, RRL and MRL components individually decreases the time required for the technology to progress through each component by 63, 68 and 64%, respectively. Therefore, under the current working assumptions, to decrease the time it may take for a technology to move from the conceptual stage to full scale market adoption one might consider expending additional effort to secure regulatory approval and reducing the uncertainty of the technology s demand in the marketplace.

Kobos, Peter Holmes↗