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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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Analyzing freight data from the Salt Lake City inland port demonstrates significant potential forintegrating battery-electric freight vehicles (BEVs) into key transportation corridors. Our partnership with freight operators like RSD and MWCS, and other companies moving freight around the port, provided valuable fleet telemetry and operationalinsights, highlighting critical corridors on and around I-15 and I-80.
This summary report and film narrative captures the journey and accomplishments of WestSmart’s multi-phase initiative, highlighting groundbreaking partnerships, community engagement, and scalable solutions that redefine transportation systems in urban and rural areas alike
Sub-Saharan Africa faces unique barriers to electricity development due to the large proportion of the population that is un-electrified and the prevalence of rural populations. Typically, power system expansion planning models assume all potential consumers can be immediately electrified. This assumption is unrealistic in sub-Saharan Africa, where electrification will likely be a gradual process over a number of years. Furthermore, since a large proportion of the population in sub-Saharan Africa is located in rural regions, the prioritization of these regions may impact how the grid develops. In this research, we develop a multi-period optimization model for power generation and transmission system expansion planning in sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast to existing models, which assume full electrification, we consider a variety of electrification policies and analyze the impact of varying the electrification rate and policy on the cost and resources selected for power system expansion. We test our model on a case study of Rwanda. We find that varying the year in which full electrification is reached has a larger impact on cost and generation capacity than varying the electrification policy does, although, when urban and rural regions are considered equitably, more rooftop solar is built. Varying the electrification policies has a larger impact on transmission expansion than on generation expansion and this impact is amplified when starting from zero initial system capacity rather than the original Rwanda system. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis shows that tightening the bounds on CO 2eq emissions has a large impact on the generation portfolio and cost.
Fast-growing freight activities over the decades have become one of the major contributors to air pollution, leading to many efforts in freight decarbonization and electrification. However, the development of freight electrification is slow due to technological uncertainty, slow charging, high capital cost, etc. This paper analyzes the potential impact and benefit of heavy-duty vehicle (HDV) electrification and automation on fleet cost, infrastructure cost, the electricity grid, and environmental outcomes. In this work, we extended the vehicle electrification benefit analysis tool: Grid-Electrified Mobility (GEM) model, which had primarily been used to study light-duty passenger vehicles (LDVs), to analyze heavy-duty vehicle electrification. The extended model is derived for freight transportation electrification, and different freight electrification and automation adoption scenarios were analyzed. We find that the increased penetration of automated electric freight fleets within other types of electrified freight fleets from 1% to 99% will result in an overall cost reduction of 18.2%, fleet size reduction of 20.4%, and lower peak load reduction of 14.3%.
This paper explores the role of electricity in achieving economy-wide net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050 in the United States based on results from 17 models as part of the 37th Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF-37). In the study's Net-Zero scenario, the models use diverse pathways to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, with gross energy-related residual emissions ranging from 17.2 to 66.6 % of 2020 levels. Electricity consistently emerges as central to achieving net-zero, with models projecting rapid electrification of end-uses and rapidly declining CO2 intensity of electricity. However, the extent of electrification and the technology mix to decarbonize the power sector vary considerably across models. In the Net-Zero scenario, electricity is projected to evolve from ~20 % of final energy in 2020 to 17-63 % in 2050 across the models driven by electrification in all sectors-buildings, industry, and transportation-and, to a lesser extent by direct air capture. By 2050, total electricity consumption increases by 24-176 % (relative to 2020), accompanied by significant expansion in renewable electricity production. Together, solar and wind generation grows by 175-834 %, supplying 45-90 % of total electricity in 2050, with wind achieving slightly higher shares than solar. Electricity storage technologies are deployed at scale to support wind and solar generation. The electricity generation mix varies across models: some project almost complete reliance on renewables, while others see a substantial role for natural gas, often with carbon capture and storage. This paper synthesizes the rich diversity of modeling approaches and results, highlighting differing views on how key drivers of electricity demand and supply might evolve.
Aircraft electric fields from NASA's Lightning Instrument Package (LIP) were coupled with other airborne and ground-based, and in situ measurements to understand electrification in winter clouds that did not produce lightning. The measurements were made during seven research flights by a NASA ER-2 during the 2020 Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS) campaign. Observed total electric field magnitudes were as high as 80 V m -1 and variability in the electric field was observed along the flight path of the ER-2, indicating horizontal and/or vertical inhomogeneity in the cloud's electrical structure. X-band airborne radar data indicated 20-dBZ echo tops above 5 km in regions where electrification exceeded 10 V m -1 . In these regions, 85-GHz brightness temperatures (TB) from an airborne radiometer were lower than 265 K, with the lowest T B (~210 K) associated with ice scattering collocated with the strongest electric fields. In situ microphysical measurements from the NASA P-3 aircraft on February 7 indicated that regions near strong electric field contained supercooled water, rimed ice hydrometeors, ice water p- content as high as 1 g m -3 , liquid water content as high as 0.15 g m -3 , and supersaturation as high as 3.5%. Furthermore, these observations support the role of mixed phase microphysics in the generation of electric fields in clouds. In three case studies, ground based S-band polarimetric radar observed depolarization streaks in differential reflectivity near areas where the strongest electrification was observed. This observation reinforces the utility of depolarization streaks to identify areas of electrification prior to lightning occurrence.
As demand for consumer electric vehicles (EVs) has drastically increased in recent years, manufacturers have been working to bring heavy-duty EVs to market to compete with Class 6-8 diesel-powered trucks. Many high-profile companies have committed to begin electrifying their fleet operations, but have yet to implement EVs at scale due to their limited range, long charging times, sparse charging infrastructure, and lack of data from in-use operation. Thus far, EVs have been disproportionately implemented by larger fleets with more resources. To aid fleet operators, it is imperative to develop tools to evaluate the electrification potential of heavy-duty fleets. However, commercially available tools, designed mostly for light-duty vehicles, are inadequate for making electrification recommendations tailored to a fleet of heavy-duty vehicles. The main challenge is that light-duty tools do not estimate real-time vehicle mass, a factor that has a disproportionate impact on the energy consumption of large commercial vehicles. The Heavy-Duty Electric Vehicle Integration and Implementation (HEVII) tool advances the state of the art in evaluating electrification potential and infrastructure requirements for fleets of commercial vehicles. In this work, the HEVII tool is demonstrated with non-uniformly sampled telematics data from an existing fleet to assess the suitability for electrification of each individual vehicle, determine optimal locations for charging infrastructure to support a fleet of EVs and analyze associated costs. Payload mass is predicted using sparse ground-truth data for all input drive cycles and an initial data analysis is conducted to assess the characteristics driving behaviors and energy consumption of the fleet using an adaptable vehicle model. Battery size requirements are determined by applying a novel charger placement algorithm to maximize routes that are viable for EVs and balance time delays with infrastructure development costs. This work details and demonstrates the different aspects of the HEVII tool, presenting preliminary results from an example use case.
China is actively promoting vehicle electrification, which is deemed to help achieve its ambitious carbon neutrality goal by 2060. Here we show that vehicle electrification in China leads to an increase in automotive emissions of mercury, a persistent, global hazardous pollutant regulated in the United Nations’ Minamata Convention. We found that with current technologies, life-cycle mercury emissions of battery electric vehicles of 300 miles of all-electric range are 92% higher than conventional gasoline internal combustion engine vehicles, primarily due to the high mercury emissions from coal-based electricity generation. Notably different from greenhouse gases, mercury emissions are mainly embedded in vehicular material production and vehicle manufacturing, accounting for 50–60% for electric vehicles and ~90% for gasoline vehicles of their life-cycle mercury emissions. Even with a deeply decarbonized power grid, mercury footprints of electric vehicles would still be higher than those of gasoline vehicles, implying a potential increase in automotive mercury emissions in any countries that promote vehicle electrification. Measures including decarbonizing electric grid, implementing mercury-specific emission control through vehicle supply chain, and increasing metal recycling in electric vehicle batteries will help mitigate the unintended mercury emission increase caused by vehicle electrification.
Emerging mobility technologies are changing the transportation system landscape. This is especially evident at airports, such as the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). Without careful analysis, these changes could lead to inefficient and costly airport operations. This paper presents a modeling framework that integrates travel mode encoding, demand projection, and microsimulation to enable airports to develop, simulate, and evaluate curbside traffic managements policies and measure their impact. Here, the framework is utilized to analyze several traffic scenarios and policies for DFW: a baseline scenario which represents DFW traffic pattern as observed in 2018 and projected to 2045, a transit network company (TNC) electrification policy, a TNC queuing policy, a policy that increased transit ridership, a bus-only policy which considers the use of only buses inside DFW, an autonomous vehicle (AV) policy which investigates the impact of autonomous vehicle (AV) adoption on airport operations, and an example COVID-19 scenario which models the impact of the COVID19 pandemic. The simulations’ results demonstrate that: increasing the DFW transit ridership postpones the need for airport curbside expansion the most; encouraging shared-mobility with the bus-only policy produces the most savings in curbside congestion delays; automation and electrification for all passenger vehicle trips to/from DFW generates the most saving in fuel consumption and emissions; and uncontrolled AV adoption incurs the highest increase in fuel consumption, delay, and emissions and could require immediate airport capacity extension. Without policy intervention or investment in additional infrastructure capacity, these results predict the current operations would face significant congestion on high demand days starting as early as 2028. While derived in close partnership with DFW, the methodology presented here can be generalized to any airport.
Abstract The Hybrid Hydraulic Electric Architecture (HHEA) has previously been proposed for off-highway vehicles to reap the efficiency and controllability benefits of electrification without needing very large electric motors. This is achieved with the use of a set of selectable common pressure rails to transmit the majority of power and small electric motors to modulate that power. Previous work has shown significant energy savings for the work circuits of a variety of machines. In this paper, the energy saving potential of HHEA for the propel circuit of a compact track loader is studied. The ports of the track hydraulic motors are selectably connected to the common pressure rails, and instead of using the electric assist motors to buck/boost pressure, as in HHEA for linear actuators, small electric assist motors are used to add/subtract torque directly. The interplay between the torque limits of the electric motors and the ability of the hydraulic motor to vary displacements is studied, along with the effect these factors have on energy saving potential. It is found that the ability to vary the displacement of the hydraulic motor allows for: more efficient electric motor operating conditions, reduced electric torque requirement, and reduced pressure rail switching events. All three of these advantages can be achieved at once using variable displacements; but trade-offs exist between these advantages (i.e. improved efficiency can be achieved at the expense of a larger electric torque requirement). Overall, the HHEA can reduce energy consumption by ∼ 36% compared to the stock machine, depending on the hydraulic motor’s ability to vary displacements, and assuming the electric motor torque is limited to 20% of that required in a direct electrification scheme.
When electrified transit systems make grid aware choices, improved social welfare is achieved by reducing grid stress, reducing system loss, and minimizing power quality issues. Electrifying transit fleet has numerous challenges like non availability of buses during charging, varying charging costs and so on, that are related the electric grid behavior. However, transit systems do not have access to the information about the co-evolution of the grid's power flow and therefore cannot account for the power grid's needs in its day-to-day operation. In this paper we propose a framework of transportation-grid co-simulation, analyzing the spatio-temporal interaction between the transit operations with electric buses and the power distribution grid. Real-world data for a day's traffic from Chattanooga city's transit system is simulated in SUMO and integrated with a realistic distribution grid simulation (using GridLAB-D) to understand the grid impact due to transit electrification. Charging information is obtained from the transportation simulation to feed into grid simulation to assess the impact of charging. We also discuss the impact to the grid with higher degree of transit electrification that further necessitates such an integrated transportation-grid co-simulation to operate the integrated system optimally. Our future work includes extending the platform for optimizing the charging and trip assignment operations.
This report presents findings from a qualitative study examining barriers and opportunities for air source heat pump (ASHP) and electric vehicle (EV) adoption in Juneau, Alaska, with a particular focus on manufactured and multifamily housing. The analysis draws on community insights from end users and middle actors to better understand how technology adoption unfolds in contexts with distinct logistical, infrastructural, and housing constraints. The report is organized according to key barriers and opportunities identified through stakeholder input, providing a structured understanding of adoption dynamics across technologies and housing types. These insights are intended to inform program design and support more effective electrification strategies tailored to local conditions. The study team employed qualitative methods to capture both in-depth and high-level perspectives on technology adoption. Data collection included: 1) two 2-hour focus groups with a total of five end users and seven middle actors, enabling detailed and structured discussion and 2) ten semistructured interviews with manufactured home owners, multifamily landlords, and one tenant, providing complementary insights across housing contexts. Focus groups captured accounts of shared challenges and opportunities while interviews offered more concise reflections on individual experiences. Together, these methods enabled a more comprehensive understanding of both systemic barriers and lived experiences with ASHPs and EVs. The findings reveal that adoption of electrification technologies is shaped by a combination of economic, logistical, and informational factors that vary across housing types, technology characteristics, user groups, and other demographic factors. Addressing these factors requires tailored strategies that reflect local conditions and user experiences. The insights in this report can provide a foundation for organizations such as AEL&P to refine program design, support more effective outreach, and anticipate shifts in energy demand associated with increased electrification. More broadly, the study highlights the importance of incorporating community perspectives when developing electrification initiatives to ensure they are both practical and responsive to real-world constraints.
After over a century of petroleum dominance many anticipate that electrification could disrupt the transportation energy landscape. At the same time, the electric power systems are undergoing profound changes: variable renewables are displacing conventional generation sources; distributed generation is disrupting utility business models; energy storage and other new technologies are emerging; and the traditional system based on the premise that generation is dispatched to match an inelastic demand is evolving to create a system with greater participation in power system planning and operations from traditionally passive consumers. In this context, it is important to understand how transportation electrification will impact electricity demand and in turn electricity supply, including changes in the load shapes that characterize the system and the opportunity to leverage flexible electric vehicle (EV) charging to better integrate demand and supply. Assessing the impacts of electrification on the energy system requires an understanding of how it might impact the amount and shape of electricity consumption, and how this electricity can be supplied. In particular, increased adoption of electric vehicles introduces a new source of demand altogether, potentially very flexible. Moreover, electrification could shift the consumption of natural gas between sectors, thereby affecting the economics for natural gas-fired generation relative to other electricity generation options. Several factors will impact the evolution of the power system under a widespread electrified future, which, in turn, could have far-reaching effects on future energy costs and emissions.
As part of Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provided technical assistance to Jackson County, Illinois to help develop their clean energy transition roadmap. Fleet electrification was identified as a potential pathway that could address the environmental injustices, high energy burden, and local pollution experienced by this former coal community. NREL worked with Jackson County, Illinois to develop a resource guide that can assist fleet managers considering a transition to electric light-duty fleet vehicles. To further understand the unique challenges of fleet electrification in Jackson County, NREL met with three leaders within the county who either managed current fleets or were responsible for fleet purchases. This resource guide includes best practices and resources that address many of the frequently asked questions that arose during these discussions. Interested fleets can then use this resource guide to help identify the initial steps needed to plan for vehicle electrification. The resource guide summarizes the basics of electric vehicle (EV) adoption for fleets, funding and incentive pathways, total cost of ownership in comparison to conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, charging infrastructure, and pilot programs.
Industrial process heat decarbonization through electrification could contribute significantly to climate change mitigation efforts. In the US industry, thermal processes accounted for more than two-thirds of the total final energy demand in 2021. Cross-cutting electrification technologies like industrial heat pumps are suitable for the process heat supply to several industrial unit operations in a sustainable way while also improving overall energy efficiency. This study employs a bottom-up approach to investigate the techno-enviro-economic potentials of deploying high-temperature and steam-generating heat pumps in US textile, pulp and paper, and automotive sectors in different timeframes. The results show that the annual technical potential energy and CO 2 savings by electrifying heat supply are 310 PJ (or 36% of the projected energy demand) and 28 MtCO 2 (or 71% of the projected CO 2 emissions) in 2050 respectively, however, these incur additional costs in each sector (ranging between 5 and 18 $\$$/GJ). The required heating capacity of industrial heat pumps is estimated at 15 GW, which translates roughly into a market of over 6000 heat pump units and an investment volume of $\$$7 billion in the studied processes. Although there may be individual cost-effective opportunities for electrifying heat supply in specific industrial sites, the overall costs are estimated to be high in the three industrial sectors due to the large disparity between electricity and natural gas prices and low heat source temperatures. To overcome the identified techno-economic barriers, comprehensive action plans for different stakeholders are also given. This study provides novel insights that should inform policymakers’ and executives’ decisions about the electrification of the current and future US industrial heat supply in relevant industrial sectors.
The Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) 37 study on deep decarbonization and high electrification analyzed a set of scenarios that achieve economy-wide net-zero carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in North America by mid-century, exploring the implications of different technology evolutions, policies, and behavioral assumptions affecting energy supply and demand. Here, for this paper, 16 modeling teams reported resulting emissions projections, energy system evolution, and economic activity. This paper provides an overview of the study, documents the scenario design, provides a roadmap for complementary forthcoming papers from this study, and offers an initial summary and comparison of results for net-zero CO 2 by 2050 scenarios in the United States. We compare various outcomes across models and scenarios, such as emissions, energy use, fuel mix evolution, and technology adoption. Despite disparate model structure and sources for input assumptions, there is broad agreement in energy system trends across models towards deep decarbonization of the electricity sector coupled with increased end-use electrification of buildings, transportation, and to a lesser extent industry. All models deploy negative emissions technologies (e.g., direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) in addition to land sinks to achieve net-zero CO 2 emissions. Important differences emerged in the results, showing divergent pathways among end-use sectors with deep electrification and grid decarbonization as necessary but not sufficient conditions to achieve net zero. These differences will be explored in the papers complementing this study to inform efforts to reach net-zero emissions and future research needs.
Decarbonization of the industrial process heat supply through electrification could contribute significantly to climate change mitigation efforts. In the U.S. industry, thermal processes accounted for more than two-thirds of the total final energy demand in 2021. Cross-cutting electrification technologies like industrial heat pumps are suitable for the process heat supply to several industrial unit operations in a sustainable way while also improving overall energy efficiency. This study employs a bottom-up approach to investigate the techno-enviro-economic potentials of deploying high-temperature and steam-generating heat pumps in the major U.S. food manufacturing sectors in different timeframes. The results show that the annual technical potential energy and CO 2 savings by electrifying process heat supply are 325 PJ (or approximately 20% of the total final energy demand in U.S. food manufacturing) and 31 MtCO 2 (equivalent to the annual CO 2 emissions from over 6 million cars in the U.S.) in 2050, respectively; however, these incur additional costs in each sector. Although there may be individual cost-effective opportunities for electrifying heat supply in specific industrial sites, the overall costs are estimated to be high in the food sectors due to the large disparity between electricity and natural gas prices and low heat source temperatures. To overcome the identified techno-economic barriers, comprehensive action plans for different stakeholders are needed. In conclusion, this study provides novel insights that should inform policymakers’ and executives’ decisions about the electrification of the current and future U.S. industrial heat supply in relevant industrial sectors.
Electrification of buildings and transportation coupled with increased deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs) has been identified as a key step toward meeting emissions reduction goals across the U.S. Examples of pilot projects that feature innovative, 'smart' electric neighborhoods are largely focused on new construction projects, but there is a need to address the millions of existing homes so that they too may accommodate cleaner yet variable energy production in ways that benefit both the utility grid and the homes' residents. The Colorado Residential Retrofit Energy District (CoRRED) project used building and grid co-simulation tools to model an advanced energy district demonstration in an existing residential neighborhood in Denver, Colorado, and explored how existing building and utility infrastructures can be enhanced with combinations of traditional energy-efficiency retrofit measures and integration of solar panels and other DER technologies to provide better affordability and reliability. We analyzed which packages of DERs most reliably enable demand flexibility in response to a time-of-use (TOU) rate. Our results clearly indicate that incorporating DERs into efficient electrification produces much bigger utility bill savings on an annual basis than efficient electrification without DERs. While electrifying a neighborhood will increase the maximum load, batteries and solar panels can reduce load during peak hours so that the community can be a net producer during peak periods. A remaining challenge is to overcome first cost barriers to implementing energy-efficiency and DER technologies, as modest utility bill savings require long payback periods that are not practical for most homeowners.