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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 OSTI2020

Feedback from International Decommissioning Planning Projects - 20269

Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants is an increasing reality in many countries with nuclear power. Already many years before final shutdown, planning of the decommissioning work is usually started in order to understand for example the costs, waste volume capacity and licensing work needed. In many countries it is required to have a final decommissioning plan before any decommissioning work is allowed to start. Westinghouse has been involved in international decommissioning planning for more than 30 years, where the first 20 years was mostly funding and preliminary plans due to that decommissioning was many years away. However, as many more plants are now moving into decommissioning, the focus has shifted to final decommissioning plans with budgets instead of funding plans, strategic decisions instead of choices, waste volume specifications instead of estimates and a defined approach instead of what ifs. Westinghouse has developed a methodology based on the planning and execution of many decommissioning projects in Europe, America and Asia. That international experience and understanding helps the customers to adopt a systematic planning process where strategy development is done with the end state in mind, where the goals are clearly outlined and the starting point described. The process and steps to reach the desired end state need to be clearly defined and all options/alternatives evaluated from a cost/benefit point of view. This is followed by a thorough and quantitative risk analysis in order to give solid recommendations and credible conclusions. One important feedback has been that real decommissioning experience from reference projects is invaluable for an efficient and timely progress in order not to spend unnecessary time and effort on understanding the barriers and links between different activities in decommissioning. Skilled project managers or engineers can drive the project forward, but without decommissioning experience previously gained, valuable lessons learned are not used and the same mistakes can be made again. Many utilities have invested in knowledge transfer from other decommissioning projects through site visits, exchange programs and supplier meetings, which is a valuable asset and way of implementing lessons learned from performed decommissioning projects into the planning process. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Guide for Improved Resource Adequacy Assessments in Evolving Power Systems: Institutional and Technical Dimensions

This paper identifies and evaluates issues in traditional resource adequacy (RA) assessment practices, and how adjusting these practices may affect and depend on existing institutional arrangements for planning and procurement. The paper proposes a technical-institutional roadmap that would allow regulators in vertically-integrated jurisdictions and system planners and operators in restructured jurisdictions to revise RA practices across a range of components. First, we compile a critical review of current RA assessment practices based on (1) interviews with RA practitioners and (2) a review of recent technical literature. We find that (i) RA may need to expand beyond capacity adequacy to ensure energy adequacy – relevant for energy-limited resources such as storage – and potentially some form of ancillary service adequacy (e.g. enough ramping-up and ramping-down capability in the system); (ii) chronological hourly simulations for all hours in the year are the current best practice; (iii) metrics and models used do not reflect economic criteria in system operation and loss of load; and (iv) there is a need to improve representation of weather dependencies and weather data. Second, we review planning and RA reports for several private and public entities that plan generation and/or transmission infrastructure in the continental U.S. to look for existing practices involving resilience assessments. We find no systematic treatment of the costs of extreme weather and other hazards, the benefits of resilience, and resilience metrics in planning analyses and no systematic treatment of resilience metrics, methods, and outcomes for resource adequacy purposes. Third, we create a technical framework for probabilistic RA assessment and use it to study how key choices about how to model power system operations affect the values that are obtained for RA metrics. We find that (i) non-economic dispatch schemes that ignore economic objectives can lead to accurate RA assessments when coordinated with detailed operational strategies; (ii) multi-year data is critical to capture a wide variety of system conditions; (iii) not incorporating transmission limits into RA assessment could lead to substantial underestimation of traditional “expected value” RA metrics; and (iv) new RA metrics that capture event-specific shortfall characteristics should be used as supplements to traditional metrics. Finally, we examine RA assessments and use this information to propose a guide of evolving industry standards for resource adequacy assessments in resource planning and transmission planning. We report minimum, best, and frontier practices for temporal resolution of assessments, metrics and targets, weather data, load forecasting, characterization of variable renewable resources, characterization of transmission and market transactions, RA modeling and integration with planning processes, and capacity accreditation.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Ahtna Tribal Energy Planning and Technical Assistance Project (Final Report)

Ahtna Intertribal Resource Commission (AITRC) provided technical assistance and capacity building activities for eight (8) tribal communities in the Ahtna region to: 1. reduce energy costs; 2. improve community wildfire readiness and biomass utilization; 3. provide local food security; and 4. reduce unemployment, poverty and outmigration in the Ahtna villages. AITRC provided community education on energy needs, conservation and efficiency, issues and options, assisted the tribes in identifying appropriate renewable energy systems, and increased their capacity to implement successful energy projects that employed local tribal members. AITRC also successfully assisted the member Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations in pursuing additional funding to advance their energy goals and projects, including Tribal Resiliency Planning, community biomass heating and wood resource assessment projects, and hydroelectric.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Minnesota’s Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Action Plan

With funding from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy State Energy Program’s Competitive Financial Assistance program, the Minnesota’s Department of Commerce (COM) created a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Action Plan that has the potential to double the state’s CHP capacity, help the state achieve its target of 1.5% annual energy savings, and improve the resilience of the distribution grid.

implementation model, combined heat and power acti↗
DOE OSTI2020

Climate-Water Impacts on Interconnection-Scale Electricity System Planning

A growing literature emphasizes the importance of integrating climate change impacts into electricity system planning. Rising average temperatures can increase and shift electricity demand while reducing generator and transmission efficiency. Changes to water availability and quality can reduce the output of thermally cooled generators and hydropower. Electric power grids across the US and globally are undergoing transformational changes that present new opportunities and challenges to reliability assurance. However, electric utilities and system operators have limited internal capabilities to incorporate these effects into planning practices. This work addresses gaps in utility and system planner practices by integrating climate-water-electricity expertise from universities and U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories with electricity system planners and stakeholders in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC). Using a highly collaborative approach, global climate model data, high-resolution hydrology models, and long-term electric sector capacity expansion tools are employed to analyze a range of climate outcomes for future electricity scenarios aligned with recent WECC planning studies. Doing so allows WECC to expand its climate-agnostic planning assessments to consider how future temperature and precipitation patterns could influence generation and transmission planning. We explore how changes to climate-water conditions can affect power plant investment and operation, system economics, and environmental impacts, providing an expanded perspective on interconnection-wide decision making under climate uncertainty.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

EVI-LOCATE User Manual

One of the longest stages in the deployment of electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) is the initial planning of the infrastructure itself. Engineers and fleet experts from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have supported dozens of charging infrastructure site plans over the past couple decades, including the generation of site schematics, determinations of electric capacity, and estimates for likely costs. As the market for electric vehicles (EVs) has matured, this approach should no longer require a time and personnel intensive process. In order to shorten the time taken to develop site plans and cost estimates, NREL developed a tool that fleet managers, facility managers, electricians, EVSE installers, and members of the public can use to develop initial schematics and ballpark pricing for charging station installations. The Electric Vehicle Infrastructure - Locally Optimized Charger Assessment Tool and Estimator (EVI-LOCATE) provides a structured and consistent way for users to enter information about their planned EVSE project in a relatively simple web-based format. EVI-LOCATE then calculates electrical equipment capacity, wiring runs, and project costs. It produces a site diagram optimized around surface characteristics with differential trenching costs for softscape such as grass compared to hardscape such as asphalt that can be adjusted by users in the tool. It also stores the resulting site plans and costs in a dashboard for access at a later date, including plan revisions if necessary. This document guides users through the EVI-LOCATE screens and associated questions. It contains tip text boxes throughout on how best to interface with the tool and find additional information or context. The appendices contain the assumptions and calculations underpinning the tool. Much of the information for EVI-LOCATE was gathered through industry engagements with EVSE installers, invoices from completed EVSE installations, Gordian's RS Means construction data, and the General Services Administration blanket purchase agreement for EVSE. For a visual tutorial of the tool, users can watch EVI-LOCATE Step-by-Step Video. The tool itself is available at https://evi-locate.nrel.gov.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

PV Hosting Capacity Estimation: Experiences with Scalable Framework

Hosting capacity is an indication of the amount of solar photovoltaics (PV) that can be hosted in a distribution system without additional changes to infrastructure or oper-ations. This paper presents a framework for estimating the PV hosting capacity at scale. First, we analyze computational, modeling and other key challenges of performing relevant, large-scale simulations, provided along with the experiences and lessons learned. Then, we develop two open-source Python-based software tools to conduct repeatable distribution analyses: the Distribution Integration Solution Cost Options (DISCO) for configuring and analyzing simulations and the Job Automation and Deployment Engine (JADE) for parallelizing jobs on high-performance computing clusters. A case study of hosting capacity estimation for the SMART-DS San Francisco (SFO) 2000+ synthetic feeders, is used to demonstrate the capability of the developed DISCO+JADE framework and tools. The framework and tools can help utilities assess the overall hosting capacity of their service territory, which can help them better plan for the overall upgrade costs to integrate more PV in the future. The experiences are shared to aid the tool users and researchers to conduct relevant studies and research.

distributed energy resources↗
DOE OSTI2020

Paradox of sustainability in tobacco control in Thailand: A comprehensive assessment of three-decade experiences

Background: Over the past three decades of tobacco control, Thailand has gained international recognition as a middle-income country with sustained achievement of declining smoking prevalence. However, the number of key FCTC measures implementation is still far away from the highest-level implementation. As a result, we aim to explore explanatory factors for the paradoxical phenomenon of sustainability in tobacco control in Thailand, to understand what the paradox means, why it happens, and how to take further steps in minimizing the paradox. Methods: We used a mixed-method approach comprising qualitative (review of literature and documents plus Program Sustainability Assessment Tool (PSAT) guided key informant interviews) and semi-quantitative methods (PSAT scoring, Theory of change (TOC), and causal-loop diagram (CLD)) to synthesize all the findings from the qualitative data. Results: Across all eight domains, sustainability scores at the local level are lower than the national level. The highest total score was in three domains: political support, partnership, and organizational capacity. The lowest total score was for the strategic planning domain. We propose a set of key strategic elements and drivers for future strategic planning. Discussion: Using CLD, we capture a high-level view of tobacco control with dynamic interactions between contexts, mechanisms, interventions, and outcomes. Finally, we believe the deep understanding of tobacco control and the proposed strategy to counteract transnational tobacco companies in Thailand will guide future sustainable actions to reduce the prevalence of smoking, especially in the strategic planning domain that has the lowest PSAT score.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Tribal Colleges and Universities/Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative (Q3 FY2020 Progress Report)

The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) initiated the Minority Serving Institution Partnership Plan (MSIPP) to 1) align investments in a university capacity and workforce development with the NNSA mission to develop the needed skills and talent for NNSA's enduring technical workforce at the laboratories and production plants, and 2) to enhance research and education at under-represented colleges and universities. Out of this effort, MSIPP launched a new consortium in early FY17 focused on Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) known as the Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative (AMNI). This consortium has been extended for FY20 and FY21. The following report summarizes the status update during this quarter.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

Tribal Colleges and Universities/Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative (Q4 FY2020 Progress Report)

The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) initiated the Minority Serving Institution Partnership Plan (MSIPP) to 1) align investments in a university capacity and workforce development with the NNSA mission to develop the needed skills and talent for NNSA’s enduring technical workforce at the laboratories and production plants, and 2) to enhance research and education at under-represented colleges and universities. Out of this effort, MSIPP launched a new consortium in early FY17 focused on Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) known as the Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative (AMNI). This consortium has been extended for FY20 and FY21. The following report summarizes the status update during this quarter.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Tribal Colleges and Universities/Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative (Phase II) (Q1 FY2021 Progress Report)

The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) initiated the Minority Serving Institution Partnership Plan (MSIPP) to 1) align investments in a university capacity and workforce development with the NNSA mission to develop the needed skills and talent for NNSA’s enduring technical workforce at the laboratories and production plants, and 2) to enhance research and education at under-represented colleges and universities. Out of this effort, MSIPP launched a new consortium in early FY17 focused on Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) known as the Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative (AMNI). This consortium has been extended for FY20 and FY21. The following report summarizes the status update during this quarter.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Tribal Colleges and Universities/Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative Phase II Sandia Technical Assistance FY21 Q3 Progress Report

The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) initiated the Minority Serving Institution Partnership Plan (MSIPP) to 1) align investments in a university capacity and workforce development with the NNSA mission to develop the needed skills and talent for NNSA’s enduring technical workforce at the laboratories and production plants, and 2) to enhance research and education at under-represented colleges and universities. Out of this effort, MSIPP launched a new consortium in early FY17 focused on Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) known as the Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative (AMNI). This consortium has been extended for FY20 and FY21. The following report summarizes the status update during this quarter.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Tribal Colleges and Universities/Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative: Phase II Sandia Technical Assistance (FY21 Q4 Progress Report)

The National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) initiated the Minority Serving Institution Partnership Plan (MSIPP) 1) to align investments in a university capacity and workforce development with the NNSA mission to develop the needed skills and talent for NNSA’s enduring technical workforce at the laboratories and production plants, and 2) to enhance research and education at under-represented colleges and universities. Out of this effort, MSIPP launched a new consortium in early FY17 focused on Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) known as the Advanced Manufacturing Network Initiative (AMNI). This consortium has been extended for FY20 and FY21. The following report summarizes the status update during this quarter.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Calista Energy Management Assistance Initiative

The Calista Energy Management Assistance Initiative (CEMAI) provided technical assistance and capacity building for 56 Tribal communities in the Calista Region of Alaska as an effort to reduce costs, improve operational efficiency, enhance human capacity, and job opportunities. CEMAI catalyzed and guided numerous efforts into a consolidated and effective initiative that brought rural energy best practices, economies of scale, operational efficiencies, human capacity, and economic development to the forefront. Calista Corporation (Calista) is one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) in the settlement of aboriginal land claims. Calista was incorporated in Alaska on June 12, 1972. The Calista Region covers Alaska’s Bethel and Kusilvak (formerly Wade Hampton) Census areas and includes 56 communities. Calista partnered with Nuvista Light and Electric Cooperative (Nuvista) on the Department of Energy, Office of Indian Energy (DOE-OIE), CEMAI project. Nuvista is a non-profit that seeks to reduce energy costs and provide renewable sources of energy to the people of western Alaska. It is founded and led by a non-profit, Tribe, Native Corporations (including Calista), energy organizations, and Alaska Native stakeholders in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YK-D) Region; covering the same service boundaries and communities served by Calista. This partnership allowed Calista to direct the project work with local energy experts to respond to community needs. In this arrangement, Calista added credibility and regional accountability while Nuvista added energy-specific expertise and skill set in project management. The delivery of the CEMAI Workplan included short-term or on-demand responses to specific technical assistance requests from communities in addition to longer-term strategically directed activities such as workshops, coordinated training, and capacity development efforts across the region. CEMAI’s Workplan aimed to enhance communities’ readiness for establishing renewable energy projects and implementing energy efficiency initiatives. The CEMAI objectives included: (1) Identifying common operational needs and improvement opportunities for entities with an energy interest or responsibility. (2) Providing access to multi-level expertise to address existing challenges. (3) Developing specialized training programs to build local capacity and community readiness. (4) Nurturing the creation of regional support networks. (5) Increasing access to regional, state, and federal energy initiatives, funding, and expertise. (6) Improving technical skills, provide livable wages, and job opportunities.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Roles and Impacts of PV-Battery Hybrids in a Decarbonized U.S. Electricity Supply

In this paper, we explore the potential impacts of growing industry interest in hybrid systems comprising PV and battery technologies on the results and findings of the Solar Futures Study (DOE 2021). We employ similar scenario definitions in the same ReEDS capacity expansion model, but we perform two versions of each scenario: one in which PV and battery technologies must be deployed separately (No Hybrids), and one in which the model has the option of deploying them together as PVB hybrids (With Hybrids). By comparing the No Hybrids and With Hybrids versions of each scenario, we isolate the impacts of hybridization on the outcomes and findings of the Solar Futures Study. We find that PVB hybrid configurations capture a sizable share of PV deployment, and the highest-net-value PVB hybrid configuration depends strongly on policy conditions. A power sector decarbonization policy generally increases the value proposition of a more forward-looking PVB hybrid configuration that involves significant oversizing of the PV arrays, a larger battery (which facilitates greater recovery and utilization of otherwise clipped energy), and a higher capacity factor. The growing deployment of PVB hybrid configurations primarily displaces standalone PV capacity, such that total installed PV capacity is largely unaffected by the availability of PVB hybrid configurations. However, the higher capacity factors associated with PVB hybrid configurations drive a modest (1-2 percentage point) increase in PV's share of U.S. electricity supply in 2050. Finally, introducing the PVB hybrid configurations influences the future role and makeup of battery storage technologies, and it reduces the required transmission expansion, particularly under scenarios that involve a power sector decarbonization policy.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Parallel computing for power system climate resiliency: Solving a large-scale stochastic capacity expansion problem with mpi-sppy

Here we propose a nodal stochastic generation and transmission expansion planning model that incorporates the output from high-resolution global climate models through load and generation availability scenarios. We implement our model in Pyomo and perform computational studies on a realistically-sized test case of the California electric grid in a high performance computing environment. We propose model reformulations and algorithm tuning to efficiently solve this large problem using a variant of the Progressive Hedging Algorithm. We utilize the parallelization capabilities and overall versatility of mpi-sppy, exploiting its hub-and-spoke architecture to concurrently obtain inner and outer bounds on an optimal expansion plan. Initial results show that instances with 360 representative days on a system with over 8,000 buses can be solved to within 5% of optimality in under 4 h of wall clock time, a first step towards solving a large-scale power system expansion planning problem across a wide range of climate-informed operational scenarios.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Capabilities Development at the University of Texas at El Paso for Hydrogen Generation Research and Education

Gasification-based systems have recently received much attention due to their capability of converting wastes into useful fuels. The gasification of biomass, municipal solid waste (MSW), plastics, and other sustainable resources has shown promise in hydrogen production. When coupled to a CCU or CCS unit, these systems have the potential to achieve carbon neutrality or carbon-negative emissions. In addition, these systems have an edge over conventional incineration or landfill systems by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and recovering useful energy. However, the gasification of MSW and other wastes is still in its early stages. In particular, co-gasification of wastes with biomass has significant unknowns in optimizing the reaction kinetics, operability, design and performance improvements. Currently, Supercritical Water Gasifiers (SCWG) and Plasma Gasifiers are the major systems that are capable of producing high hydrogen amounts from Biomass and MSW, respectively. However, both systems have high capital and operating costs, adversely affecting efficiency and the hydrogen production cost. Additionally, due to lower temperatures, SCWGs are prone to tar formation and fouling in the heat exchangers. Hence, there is a need to look for alternative solutions for MSW and biomass gasifications, particularly in co-gasification. The current effort aims to develop a strategic plan to establish a sustainable gasification facility for hydrogen research at the University of Texas at El (UTEP). A major part of this effort involves an extensive literature survey to identify technological gaps and potential areas of interest. Several concepts were developed in accordance with the current demands from the literature survey. Based on the concepts, a center-wide capability assessment was conducted to measure the current capacity and feasibility of establishing hydrogen research. Afterward, a strategic research plan was developed, and a list of required resources was made for the expansion of hydrogen research at UTEP. In addition, successful partnerships with the local county and the city were developed to pursue hydrogen research. The strategic goal setting and planning of UTEP Aerospace Center resulted in securing $2.5 million in external support to expand the hydrogen research during the project performance period. In addition, during the project period, a course in Hydrogen Energy Systems was developed to expand the energy curriculum at the UTEP Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department. The course focused on hydrogen production, storage, supply and delivery and application. The cross-listed course was offered at both undergraduate and graduate levels during the Spring 2024 semester and had 27 enrolled students. Moreover, the students supported under this award were trained in gasification process modeling, CAD, CFD and FEA during the project period. The training enabled the students to move into new projects to support gasification design, integrated gasification combined cycle process plant analysis, gasifier structural and operational analysis, and digitally threading the systems.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2026

Summary of GFL Inverter Capability and Performance: Malawi [Slides]

This presentation provides a comprehensive comparison of inverter-based resource (IBR) technical requirements across multiple international grid codes - including IEEE 2800, ESO, EirGrid, and Malawi's evolving regulatory framework - to support capacity building for electricity-sector institutions in Malawi. It highlights key performance expectations for grid-following (GFL) inverters across critical domains such as primary and fast frequency response, ramping behavior, frequency and voltage ride-through capabilities, reactive power and voltage control, ROCOF withstand, phase jump tolerance, system strength considerations, protection schemes, and dynamic modeling requirements. Emphasizing a "Do no harm, do something, do more" philosophy, the document synthesizes best practices and operational benchmarks to guide the integration and stability of inverter-based resources within Malawi's power system. The presentation forms part of the SABESS Center of Excellence initiative supported by the Global Energy Alliance for People and the Planet.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗