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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Packages of Distributed Energy Technologies Demonstrating Demand Flexibility at Community Scale

The combination of increased electric load growth across all sectors, deferred electrical infrastructure investment, and other factors resulting in variable electric power supply, has created technical challenges to maintaining a resilient and reliable grid. Many federal, regional, and local efforts are in play to modernize the electric grid, including advancing building technologies and distributed energy resources (DERs) that are utilizing smarter controls to become responsive to both occupant and grid needs. This report reviews ten pilot projects demonstrating how groups of buildings combined with behind-the-meter (BTM) DERs such as electric vehicle (EV) charging, battery storage, flexible HVAC and domestic hot water systems, and photovoltaic systems can reliably and cost effectively provide grid services. Each of the ten pilot projects aim to deliver both energy efficiency and demand flexibility (DF) while supporting load growth. The ten demonstration teams are piloting flexible DER packages across diverse communities of residential and commercial buildings to address a variety of regional grid needs. The outcomes of these pilot projects will be used to inform future scaling through utility program development. This paper characterizes the ten teams, showcasing the decision-making process used by each group to develop their packages (Section 2), the grid services they plan to deliver (Section 3), the types of DER packages selected for deployment within building sectors (Section 4) and trends between building sector, DER types, and grid services In order to achieve community scale benefits, the pilot projects must utilize aggregated control mechanisms for coordinating buildings and DERs together. Several types of coordinated control architectures have evolved amongst the teams, influenced by use type, existing market conditions, and integration type. Three coordinated controls architectures have been characterized, highlighting their use cases, benefits, challenges, and tradeoffs in their design. These insights can aid utilities, control vendors, and developers in scaling community-level energy systems (Paul, 2024). Ultimately, the technology packages selected by the ten teams will be coordinated to provide power system services, also known as grid services. Insights from these demonstrations will be useful for grid operators, regulators, aggregators and other stakeholders as they look to deploy demand flexible resources as grid services in the future. The grid services that each team is targeting for demonstration are described in Section 3 and Section 4. Methods for evaluating the grid services have been described in the paper Metrics for Evaluating Grid Service Provision from Communities of Grid-interactive and Efficient Buildings and other DER (MacDonald, 2023). To identify technology packages for demonstration, Section 2 shows that project teams used a range of analysis approaches, including building energy modeling, AMI data analysis, cost-benefit frameworks, and utility pilot data. Some teams emphasized technical modeling to quantify grid impacts and demand reduction potential, while others prioritized economic evaluations, stakeholder input, or exploratory pilots to inform deployment decisions. This diversity reflects the need to tailor selection methods to project goals, available data, and organizational context. Section 5 discusses trends between the DER technologies deployed and the grid service provisions from each team. Residential buildings (multifamily and single family) lean towards technologies that enhance energy efficiency (e.g. weatherization upgrades, smart thermostats) and onsite power generation integration (e.g. solar PV). Commercial building demonstrations prioritize technologies that ensure operational reliability (e.g. battery storage) and centralized energy management systems and optimization solutions. Teams that are deploying controllable storage-based technologies are more likely to provide grid services that require a near real-time response. Teams incorporating load shifting technologies like smart thermostats with HEMs are likely to include energy markets participation and customer bill management offerings. Campus demonstrations are adopting diverse sets of DERs to emphasize renewable generation, paired with centralized control. This section also describes technologies that were considered during project planning but ultimately excluded from final deployment. These demonstrations reveal that effective DER package design should be tailored to building type, customer segment, and construction vintage. Multifamily buildings benefit from centralized HVAC upgrades and supervisory controls, while single-family homes are well-suited for individualized technologies like solar, storage, and smart home energy monitors. Commercial and campus settings prioritize EMIS integration and load optimization. New construction enables cost-effective integration of DER-ready infrastructure, whereas retrofits require deployments aligned with owner and tenant value streams. For utility program planners, early coordination with developers and building owners, paired with segmented and modular program offerings, can improve adoption, scalability, and grid impact.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS1987

Photovoltaic power modules for NASA's manned space station

The capability and the safety of manned spacecraft are largely dependent upon reliable electric power systems. Two similar space power systems able to survive the low Earth orbit environment, are being considered for NASA's Manned Space Station (SS), scheduled to begin operation in the mid 1990's. The Space Station Electric Power System (EPS) is composed of Photovoltaic (PV) Power Modules, Solar Dynamic (SD) Power Modules, and the Power Management and Distribution (PMAD) System. One EPS configuration will deliver 37.5 kW of PV based, utility grade, ac power to SS users. A second 75 kWe PV based EPS option is also being considered for SS deployment. The two EPS options utilize common modules and differ only in the total number of PV Power Modules used. Each PV Power Module supplies 18.75 kWe of ac power and incorporates its own energy storage and thermal control. The general requirements and the current preliminary design configuration of the Space Station PV Power Modules are examined.

Tatro, Charles A.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Photovoltaic power modules for NASA's manned Space Station

The capability and the safety of manned spacecraft are largely dependent upon reliable electric power systems. Two similar space power systems able to survive the low earth orbit environment, are being considered for NASA's Manned Space Station (SS), scheduled to begin operation in the mid 1990's. The Space Station Electric Power System (EPS) is composed of Photovoltaic (PV) Power Modules, Solar Dynamic (SD) Power Modules, and the Power Management and Distribution (PMAD) System. One EPS configuration will deliver 37.5 kW of PV based, utility grade, ac power to SS users. A second 75 kWe PV based EPS option is also being considered for SS deployment. The two EPS options utilize common modules and differ only in the total number of PV Power Modules used. Each PV Power Module supplies 18.75 kWe of ac power and incorporates its own energy storage and thermal control. The general requirements and the current preliminary design configuration of the Space Station PV Power Modules are examined.

Tatro, C. A.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Solar PV Transmission Setbacks: Ordinances (2022) and Extrapolated Trends

This dataset represents solar energy setback requirements from transmission. A setback requirement is a minimum distance from transmission infrastructure that an energy project may be developed. As of April 2022, no ordinances were discovered for any counties. Such ordinances are likely to arise as regulations continue to expand. Therefore, this dataset applies a 30-meter setback, sourced from trends in other infrastructure. A TIF data file and a PNG map of the data are provided, showing areas where solar energy is prohibited or permitted across the contiguous United States. For further details and citation, please refer to the publication linked below: Lopez, Anthony, Pavlo Pinchuk, Michael Gleason, Wesley Cole, Trieu Mai, Travis Williams, Owen Roberts, Marie Rivers, Mike Bannister, Sophie-Min Thomson, Gabe Zuckerman, and Brian Sergi. 2024. Solar Photovoltaics and Land-Based Wind Technical Potential and Supply Curves for the Contiguous United States: 2023 Edition. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-6A20-87843.

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DOE OSTI2024

Solar PV Structure Setbacks: Ordinances (2022) and Extrapolated Trends

This dataset represents solar energy setback requirements from structures based on county ordinances as of April 2022. A setback requirement is a minimum distance from a structure that an energy project may be developed, and these varied widely across the counties in which they existed. Two versions are provided: one reflecting only the county ordinances and another incorporating extrapolated trends. In the extrapolated version, a default setback of 61 meters was applied in counties without specific structure setback regulations. A TIF data file and a PNG map of the data are provided for both versions, showing areas where solar energy is prohibited or permitted across the contiguous United States. For further details and citation, please refer to the publication linked below: Lopez, Anthony, Pavlo Pinchuk, Michael Gleason, Wesley Cole, Trieu Mai, Travis Williams, Owen Roberts, Marie Rivers, Mike Bannister, Sophie-Min Thomson, Gabe Zuckerman, and Brian Sergi. 2024. Solar Photovoltaics and Land-Based Wind Technical Potential and Supply Curves for the Contiguous United States: 2023 Edition. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-6A20-87843.

Array↗
DOE OSTI2026

Microgrid Hardening Design Toolkit: Puerto Rico Use Case

This document provides a comprehensive example of the microgrid hardening framework and the Sandia developed Microgrid Hardening Design Toolkit v0.27 using a census tract in a coastal area of southern Puerto Rico as a case study. The census tract (72123953100) is located in the municipality of Salinas. Currently, the La Margarita neighborhood within this census tract is part of the Department of Energy’s Cohort 5 of the Energy Technology Innovation and Partnership Program (ETIPP). The neighborhood’s local energy cooperative, Abeyno Coop, has been operating several residential solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage system (BESS) installations (with around 30 rooftop solar systems as of 2026). As part of the ETIPP project, Abeyno Coop is planning to integrate a larger microgrid into the existing distribution feeder in the area, including solar PV and BESS to supply energy for homes and critical loads such as the medical facilities and the community center that provides emergency shelter and backup power during outages.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS2005

Thermoelectric Air/Soil Energy-Harvesting Device

A proposed thermoelectric device would exploit natural temperature differences between air and soil to harvest small amounts of electric energy. Because the air/soil temperature difference fluctuates between nighttime and daytime, it is almost never zero, and so there is almost always some energy available for harvesting. Unlike photovoltaic cells, the proposed device could operate in the absence of sunlight. Unlike a Stirling engine, which could be designed to extract energy from the air/soil temperature difference, the proposed device would contain no moving parts. The main attractive feature of the proposed device would be high reliability. In a typical application, this device would be used for low-power charging of a battery that would, in turn, supply high power at brief, infrequent intervals for operating an instrumentation package containing sensors and communication circuits. The device (see figure) would include a heat exchanger buried in soil and connected to a heat pipe extending up to a short distance above the ground surface. A thermoelectric microgenerator (TEMG) would be mounted on top of the heat pipe. The TEMG could be of an advanced type, now under development, that could maintain high (relative to prior thermoelectric generators) power densities at small temperature differentials. A heat exchanger exposed to the air would be mounted on top of the TEMG. It would not matter whether the air was warmer than the soil or the soil warmer than the air: as long as there was a nonzero temperature difference, heat would flow through the device and electricity would be generated. A study of factors that could affect the design and operation of the device has been performed. These factors include the thermal conductances of the soil, the components of the device, the contacts between the components of the device, and the interfaces between the heat exchangers and their environments. The study included experiments that were performed on a model of the device to demonstrate feasibility. Because a TEMG suitable for this device was not available, a brass dummy component having a known thermal conductance of 1.68 W/K was substituted for the TEMG in the models to enable measurement of heat flows. The model included a water-based heat pipe 30 in. (76.2 cm) long and 1 in. (2.54 cm) in diameter, wrapped with polyethylene insulation to reduce radial heat flow. Several different side heat exchangers were tested. On the basis of the measurements, it was predicted that if a prototype of the device were equipped with a TEMG, daily temperature fluctuations would cause its output power to fluctuate between 0 and about 0.1 mW, peaking to 0.35 mW during early afternoon.

Snyder, Jeffrey↗
DOE OSTI2021

The role of current and emerging technologies in meeting Japan’s mid- to long-term carbon reduction goals

Using Japan as a proxy for a developed nation, we investigated the role of existing and nascent technologies in curbing carbon emissions. We simulated possible pathways to meeting 2030 and 2050 emission targets within the Japanese electricity supply sector using a single-region model in The Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System (TIMES). Critically, our simulations incorporate novel technologies like hydrogen electrolysers, carbon capture, photochemical water splitting, and emerging photovoltaic cells, assess long-term impacts up to the year 2100, and include life-cycle emissions and learning curves for parameters such as investment cost, efficiency, and emission coefficients. Results indicate that a hybrid approach, using nuclear power and hydrogen from renewable energy-based electrolysis, is cost-effective and provides long-term emission reduction along with energy security. Finally, nuclear, wind, solar, and hydrogen from renewables emerge as key emission reduction technologies, while natural gas with carbon capture plays a minor role in achieving emission reduction targets.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

OPET Hardware (Open PV Electrical Tool Hardware) [SWR-25-42]

OPET (Open-source Photovoltaic Electrical Tool) is used for performance measurements of solar photovoltaic (PV) devices in the field under natural sunlight or in the lab under artificial light. Its primary use is in research and development of solar cells and modules, specifically in reliability and durability research of PV devices. Some features and functions include: -IV curve measurements with linear or cosine distributed measurement points -PV device active loading at open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current (Isc) and maximum power point (Pmp) -Bias power supply to overcome series resistance in contact wires for Isc measurements and loading -PV voltage input in five ranges from 1V to 100V -PV current input ranges -Low current version, six current ranges from 1.1mA to 340mA -High current version, six current ranges from 50mA to 15A -IO ports for I2C and SPI temperature sensor Arduino extension boards -Integrated fan control This repository contains everything relating to the hardware of the OPET device. If you are looking for the firmware or software repositories, links are below: https://github.com/NREL/opet-firmware https://github.com/NREL/opet-control

McDanold, Byron [National Renewable Energy Laborat↗
NASA NTRS1992

Power processing units for high power solar electric propulsion

An evaluation of high-power processing units (PPUs) for multimegawatt solar electric propulsion (SEP) vehicles using advanced ion thrusters is presented. Significant savings of scale are possible for PPUs used to supply power to ion thrusters operating at 0.1 to 1.5 MWe per thruster. The PPU specific mass is found to be strongly sensitive to variations in the ion thruster's power per thruster and moderately sensitive to variations in the thruster's screen voltage due to varying the I(sp) of the thruster. Each PPU consists of a dc-to-dc converter to increase the voltage from the 500 V dc of the photovoltaic power system to the 5 to 13 kV dc required by the ion thrusters.

Frisbee, Robert H.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Wind Turbine Oil and Gas Pipeline Setbacks: Ordinances (2022) and Extrapolated Trends, 115 Hub Height 170 Rotor Diameter

This dataset represents wind energy setback requirements from oil and gas pipelines. A setback requirement is a minimum distance from a pipeline that an energy project may be developed. As of April 2022, no ordinances were discovered for any counties. Such ordinances are likely to arise as regulations continue to expand. Therefore, this dataset applies a median setback equivalent to 1.1 times the turbine tip-height, sourced from trends in other infrastructure. A TIF data file and a PNG map of the data are provided, showing areas where wind energy is prohibited or permitted across the contiguous United States. The turbine parameters used were a hub-height of 115 meters and a rotor diameter of 170 meters, as obtained from the Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) 2022. For further details and citation, please refer to the publication linked below: Lopez, Anthony, Pavlo Pinchuk, Michael Gleason, Wesley Cole, Trieu Mai, Travis Williams, Owen Roberts, Marie Rivers, Mike Bannister, Sophie-Min Thomson, Gabe Zuckerman, and Brian Sergi. 2024. Solar Photovoltaics and Land-Based Wind Technical Potential and Supply Curves for the Contiguous United States: 2023 Edition. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-6A20-87843.

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DOE OSTI2021

The implications of uncertain renewable resource potentials for global wind and solar electricity projections

Studies exploring long-term energy system transitions rely on resource cost-supply curves derived from estimates of renewable energy (RE) potentials to generate wind and solar power projections. However, estimates of RE potentials are characterized by large uncertainties stemming from methodological assumptions that vary across studies, including factors such as the suitability of land and the performance and configuration of technology. Based on a synthesis of modeling approaches and parameter values used in prior studies, we explore the implications of these uncertain assumptions for onshore wind and solar photovoltaic electricity generation projections globally using the Global Change Analysis Model. We show that variability in parametric assumptions related to land use (e.g. land suitability) are responsible for the most substantial uncertainty in both wind and solar generation projections. Additionally, assumptions about the average turbine installation density and turbine technology are responsible for substantial uncertainty in wind generation projections. Under scenarios that account for climate impacts on wind and solar energy, we find that these parametric uncertainties are far more significant than those emerging from differences in climate models and scenarios in a global assessment, but uncertainty surrounding climate impacts (across models and scenarios) have significant effects regionally, especially for wind. Our analysis suggests the need for studies focusing on long-term energy system transitions to account for this uncertainty.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Airport and Heliport Setbacks

This dataset represents a first-order quantification of airport and heliport setback requirements based on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 14 CFR Part 77.9. It defines the following FAA notice criteria that we use to create runway buffers. Runways longer than 3,200 feet receive a 20,000 foot buffer, runways less than 3,200 feet long receive a buffer of 10,000 feet, and heliports receive a buffer of 5,000 feet. A setback requirement is a minimum distance from an airport or heliport that an energy project may be developed. For further details and citation, please refer to the publication linked below: Lopez, Anthony, Pavlo Pinchuk, Michael Gleason, Wesley Cole, Trieu Mai, Travis Williams, Owen Roberts, Marie Rivers, Mike Bannister, Sophie-Min Thomson, Gabe Zuckerman, and Brian Sergi. 2024. Solar Photovoltaics and Land-Based Wind Technical Potential and Supply Curves for the Contiguous United States: 2023 Edition. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-6A20-87843.

airport↗
DOE OSTI2023

Decarbonizing all-electric communities via carbon-responsive control of behind-the-meter resources

The progression of electrification in the building and transportation sectors brings new opportunities for energy decarbonization. With higher dependence on the grid power supply, the variation of the grid carbon emission intensity can be utilized to reduce the carbon emissions from the two sectors. Existing coordinated control methods for buildings with distributed energy resources (DERs) either consider electricity price or renewable energy generation as the input signal, or adopt optimization in the decision-making, which is difficult to implement in the real-world environment. This paper aims to propose and validate an easy-to-deploy rule-based carbon responsive control framework that facilitates coordination between all-electric buildings and electric vehicles (EVs). The signals of the grid carbon emission intensity and the local photovoltaics (PV) generation are used for shifting the controllable loads. Extensive simulations were conducted using a model of an all-electric mixed-use community in a cold climate to validate the control performance with metrics such as emissions, energy consumption, peak demand, and EV end-of-day state-of-charge (SOC). Our study identifies that 4.5% to 27.1% of annual emission reduction can be achieved with limited impact on energy costs, peak demand, and thermal comfort. Additionally, up to 32.7% of EV emission reduction can be obtained if the EV owners reduce the target SOC by less than 21.2%.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

An Energy Service Interface for Distributed Energy Resources

Renewable energy resources, particularly wind and solar photovoltaic, are becoming significant contributors to electric power generation. These re-sources will contribute towards achieving sustainable electric power systems. However, renewable resources will dramatically increase the demand for flexible power system operations. This paper proposes an energy service interface that will allow aggregated distributed energy resources, such as residential loads and inverter-based systems, to participate in NERC-defined smart energy reliability services. Such cyber-physical systems will increase system flexibility by ensuring match between energy supply and energy demand.Aggregation and coordinated dispatch of millions of distributed energy resources will require development of large-scale computing networks. Several smart grid interface-enabling technologies, including IEEE 2030.5, Common Smart Inverter Profile, SunSpec Modbus, and CTA 2045, are discussed. Residential loads are categorized by their static and dynamic energy characteristics to identify services in which they can participate. The business model for the energy services interface as well as probabilistic modeling for resource estimation are highlighted as future considerations.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Revisiting the Terawatt Challenge

Richard E. Smalley, in 2003, defined the Terawatt (TW) Challenge as “Adapting our energy infrastructure to simultaneously address diminishing oil resources and rising levels of atmospheric CO 2 .” Smalley, best known for the discovery of C 60 , for which he received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, continued to address the challenges of anthropomorphic and natural global energy flows until he passed away in 2005. Smalley challenged the world to transform the energy sector. He envisioned electricity transmitted by high-voltage direct current (DC) lines from massively deployed solar plants in sunny areas and remotely sited nuclear plants. He also envisioned using advanced batteries for local storage of energy. To meet the needs of ~10 people in a world with a dwindling oil supply, Smalley asserted that the world would need to transform its fossil-fuel-driven 14-TW (average power) energy used in 2003 to a largely renewable-energy-driven 30–60 TW (average power) in 2050. This would be possible only if solar-electricity costs could be drastically reduced. The challenges associated with this transition have been called the “Terawatt Challenge.” Fifteen years later, solar-module costs have been reduced by tenfold and annual deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules has grown by a factor of 100,from ~1 gigawatt (GW) in 2004 to ~100 GW in 2018, with a total of 500 GW installed worldwide, producing 2% of the planet’s electricity. As global installed solar generating capacity approaches1 TW, we revisit Smalley’s TW challenge to identify what has changed and quantify the TW Challenge for a baseline scenario and for two scenarios designed as upper and lower bounds determined by the degree we implement electrification and storage. In this paper, we show that the energy choices we make today will dramatically affect the magnitude of future global energy requirements.

SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Will Solar Panels Help When the Power Goes Out? Planning for PV Resilience

PV systems, like all energy systems, must chart a difficult course in order to improve resilience. They need to simultaneously withstand extreme conditions that cause grid power disruptions, be configured in a way that allows electricity to be delivered to meet the PV user's needs, and overcome disruptions arising from solar resource intermittency. Certain considerations reveal themselves as key to a PV system's resilience benefits. Choice of hardware is critical, as is site selection for the PV array. Voluminous evidence in a hurricane context demonstrates that durable hardware, properly maintained and sited, leads to PV systems surviving extreme weather with their functionality intact. Structurally weak or poorly maintained PV equipment, on the other hand, has demonstrated failures during extreme weather events. PV system stakeholders should ensure that best practices are followed for hardware procurement and siting. It is also important to understand that PV systems are not one-size-fits-all. While incorporating islanding capabilities and energy storage into the system's electrical topology will typically enhance resilience, the user's needs will determine the optimally resilient conformation of any given system. These factors - appropriate hardware, siting, maintenance, and system design - are the primary drivers of PV resilience. PV systems possess high potential for resilient energy generation due to their distributed, abundant, and free fuel supply, but the technology itself does not inherently lead to resilient outcomes. Realizing PV's potential for resilience requires consideration of these determinative factors.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗