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Presentation of current research and development programs for photovoltaic technologies at NASA. This presentation to the IAPG RECWG highlights capabilities and programs that enhance the usage of solar cells and arrays for unique NASA missions.
An overview of solar power research and development projects at NASA GRC
A presentation of photovoltaic research and technology efforts currently underway at NASA GRC. This presentation includes information on the motivation and needs for advancement of solar power systems to meet NASA mission needs. Additional detail is given to the Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT) project and the Photovoltaic Investigation on the Lunar Surface (PILS) project.
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The Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska (ITKN) is a federally recognized Native American Tribe located along the Missouri River on the border of northeast Kansas and southeastern Nebraska. There are over 800 residents (Tribal citizens and non-Tribal) who live on the reservation, as well as more than 500 people who visit or work on the reservation on a daily basis. The ITKN faces many energy challenges, including rising service costs and dozens of power outages annually that impact resident well-being and business activities on Tribal lands. Power service issues are made more challenging by the remoteness of the reservation, which is 20 miles from the nearest town. Despite this, the ITKN has a long history of cultural and economic resilience: Local self-reliance, environmental stewardship, respecting the carrying capacity of the land, and strengthening the community are Tribal communities' traditional strengths. Long-term energy goals for the ITKN are centered around achieving energy sovereignty. Priority actions include: (1) Establishing a Tribal Utility Authority (TUA) to promote social welfare and community development.; (2) Deploying renewable community microgrids with ground-mount solar arrays and sustainable energy storage systems to advance energy sovereignty, resilience, and reliability. To advance these goals, the ITKN partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program) pilot. From August 2022 to March 2024, the ITKN community coalition collaborated with technical assistance providers at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories to evaluate TUA planning needs and microgrid deployment scenarios. This final report details the Communities LEAP technical assistance process, models and analysis performed, and results.
Diversification, intended to underly the far term of the energy conservation program, was defined to imply conservation through substitution for scarce energy resources by maximizing the total number of viable energy system types in every sector. The following requirements or aspects of diversification that must be studied were given: fuel mix and end use patterns for various alternative diversification plans, current status of diversification, advantages and disadvantages of diversification, constraints and criteria, diversification actions and their controls, and means for implementing the chosen diversification strategy. The following advantages resulting from diversification were described: competition, crisis-related situations, local energy production, decentralized plant locations, long range energy policy, and environmental overloads. The major criteria by which a diversification program should be judged, the major constraints affecting the approaches, and the road to diversification, were elaborated.
State programs to improve energy affordability and reduce energy burden (the share of income spent on energy) could mitigate concerns about rising electricity prices. Many states offer bill assistance and rebates for weatherization and rooftop solar to income-qualifying households. Here, we analyse how these approaches may complement one another to improve energy affordability. Results illustrate trade offs between program costs and energy burden reduction, as well as between a program’s upfront and ongoing costs. Generally, the three strategies complement one another to improve energy affordability at lower net present cost than bill assistance alone, with varying effects across regions. Weatherization can reduce the solar installation capacity needed, and both together can reduce or eliminate ongoing reliance on bill assistance. Under full uptake among cost-effective households, fully rebated weatherization and solar rebated at $0.48/Watt, combined with bill assistance, yield the same modelled net present cost as bill assistance alone while reducing the share of low-income owner-occupied households with high energy burdens from 66% to 19%, compared with 34% under bill assistance alone. Absent tax credits, weatherization still reduces energy burden and bill assistance program costs, whereas solar may not be cost-competitive.
VIP program for computing incident and absorbed energy at orbiting satellite surface
This report is a comprehensive summary of the related workstreams pursued through the Communities Local Energy Action Program (Communities LEAP) pilot Technical Assistance (TA) program in Louisville, Kentucky. It begins with an analysis around energy efficiency technologies, focused on building envelope improvements, that explores the impact to individual residents as well as the impact to the community at-large if the upgrades were adopted city-wide. Community benchmarking ordinances and complementary policies are considered next, including comparisons of programs with peer communities. A workforce development section then covers the state of Louisville's workforce today and identifies programs in peer communities that Louisville could consider emulating to achieve a "right-sized" workforce. The document closes out with an overview of policies around energy efficiency in peer communities that Louisville could explore, with considerations for the City's unique policy context.
This report was prepared as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Communities Local Energy Action Program (Communities LEAP) pilot competitive technical assistance for the Lawrence Massachusetts Stakeholder Coalition (LSC) composed of The City of Lawrence, All In Energy, MassDevelopment, Mill City Community Investments, BlocPower and Groundwork Lawrence, and led by Browning the Green Space. The LSC identified rooftop solar photovoltaics as a top priority for this technical assistance opportunity. Lawrence faces high energy burden and electricity prices, thus rooftop solar can be a tool to help lower those costs. However, the coalition received feedback that some solar companies were using deceptive and unfair practices when marketing, selling, or financing solar energy, costing residents more money than utility rates and increasing the energy burden. This project sought to address rooftop solar community priorities through two pathways: 1. facilitating community engagement to understand community perspectives and experiences with rooftop solar development; and 2. conducting a financial cash-flow analysis highlighting the varying fiscal outcomes for rooftop solar adopters based off rooftop solar leasing, ownership, or buying electricity from the utility (National Grid).
As part of the Communities Local Energy Action Program (CLEAP), the Lawrence Stakeholders Coalition (LSC) is interested in assessing and understanding the potential for and pathways to electrification for the City of Lawrence. The LSC's main questions are: What is the impact of various electrification packages on residential electricity bills and what types of buildings should the LSC target for electrification plus weatherization packages? This technical assistance, using ResStock tool modeling, aims to assist the Coalition's electrification and energy burden reduction planning by: 1. Providing cross-cutting data on housing stock characteristics, energy burden characteristics, fuel types, energy consumption, and system efficiency; and 2. Providing information on upgrade package costs, emissions reduction, and energy reductions by prioritized housing segment. The ResStock analysis presented here focuses on opportunities to reduce energy burden, energy consumption, and energy bills for single family homes, multifamily buildings, and mobile homes.
Presented are the FY 1985 accomplishments, activities, and planned research efforts of the Biocatalysis Project of the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Conversion and Utilization Technologies (ECUT) Program. The Project's technical activities were organized as follows: In the Molecular Modeling and Applied Genetics work element, research focused on (1) modeling and simulation studies to establish the physiological basis of high temperature tolerance in a selected enzyme and the catalytic mechanisms of three species of another enzyme, and (2) determining the degree of plasmid amplification and stability of several DNA bacterial strains. In the Bioprocess Engineering work element, research focused on (1) studies of plasmid propagation and the generation of models, (2) developing methods for preparing immobilized biocatalyst beads, and (3) developing an enzyme encapsulation method. In the Process Design and Analysis work element, research focused on (1) further refinement of a test case simulation of the economics and energy efficiency of alternative biocatalyzed production processes, (2) developing a candidate bioprocess to determine the potential for reduced energy consumption and facility/operating costs, and (3) a techno-economic assessment of potential advancements in microbial ammonia production.
With electricity consumption across the United States (US) and Canada anticipated to grow, energy efficiency program administrators have a key role to play in helping to ensure energy affordability and reliability in support of the broader economic systems utilities and grid support. Connected, demand side load balancing solutions, such as load shifting heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and managed charging for electric vehicles (EVs), can dynamically manage energy, allowing for more volumetric electricity consumption without incurring the expense of upgraded transmission and distribution capabilities. When combined, or aggregated, many small loads can be managed to have meaningful impact on energy demand on the grid. Utilities and their partners have an opportunity to leverage decades of experience and the infrastructure needed to assess, design, implement, and measure programs to scale up the adoption of equipment with built-in load flexibility capabilities. Current efforts among a wide variety of electricity system service providers, utilities, standards agencies, regulators, national labs and private industry stakeholders aim to identify common standards, metrics, and methodologies for valuing grid services offered by demand side equipment. By combining those efforts with decades of proven energy efficiency resources, utilities are poised to effectuate a scaling up of equipment with energy management capabilities installed in homes and businesses across the US and Canada. This paper will provide an overview of how utilities are approaching this era of load growth and new peak demands across the United States and Canada. It will highlight the specific strategies that program administrators are employing to advance market transformation for grid-enabled products and devices that have the greatest potential to reduce energy use and increase load flexibility.
Detailed knowledge of the irradiance of the sun at ground locations is essential for the design and evaluation of solar energy conversion systems. The primary source of such data is the global network of weather stations. Such stations are often too far apart and for most locations the data available are only daily total irradiance or monthly averages. Solar energy conversion programs require insolation data with considerably higher geographical and temporal resolution. Meteorological satellites gather routinely extensive data on the energy reflected and scattered into space by the earth-atmosphere system. A program has been initiated to use such data for deriving ground insolation for energy conversion. Some of the preliminary results of this program will be discussed.
Univac computer programs for energy levels and transition probabilities for ruby and emeralds
Since 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy's Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) has been at the forefront of nuclear research, specifically concentrating on advancing high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) technologies. By Fiscal Year 2024, NEUP has authorized 36 projects dedicated to HTGR research, each contributing significantly to the enhancement of our understanding of this technology. The outcomes of these diverse projects have been disseminated through final NEUP reports, peer-reviewed journal articles, and presentations at academic conferences, forming a comprehensive tapestry of knowledge. Despite the substantial value of these findings, their dissemination has been fragmented, posing challenges for accessibility to researchers and policymakers and leading to underutilization of DOE investments. Recognizing this critical gap and its potential consequences for the future of nuclear research, the Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART) Gas-Cooled Reactor (GCR) program conducted an extensive survey of completed and ongoing HTGR NEUP projects. This survey enabled the compilation of crucial data, resulting in the development of a specialized public-access database tailored for computational fluid dynamics and system code validation, specifically designed for HTGR applications. However, the data collection process revealed a significant challenge in central data organization due to individual researchers from different institutes employing varying logics and preferences for recording and documenting experimental data. Consequently, an urgent need has been identified to establish a standardized reporting format for HTGR experimental projects. Addressing this issue is essential for enhancing collaboration, maximizing the impact of DOE investments, and ensuring the seamless advancement of HTGR technologies in nuclear research.
The resilience of federal facilities has become increasingly important among lawmakers, agency leadership, and the American public as high impact natural hazards occur more frequently over time. Resilience is broadly defined as the ability of a federal facility to withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions to maintain critical functions. The Department of Energy (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) was codified to facilitate the strengthening of federal energy and water efficiency and resilience. Performance contracting is one of the mechanisms through which federal agencies can finance projects at their facilities, but resilience improvement measures do not always result in utility cost savings, which are the primary driver behind performance contracts. This report provides example cases where performance contracts, specifically energy savings performance contracts (ESPC) or utility energy service contracts (UESCs), were used to implement a resilience measure at a federal facility.
An overview of NASA s electrochemical energy storage programs for NASA Exploration missions is being presented at the 10th Electrochemical Power Sources R&D Symposium, which is being held in Williamsburg, VA on August 20-23, 2007. This public domain venue, which is sponsored by the U.S. Navy and held every two years, serves as a forum for the dissemination of research and development results related to electrochemical energy storage technology programs that are currently being supported and managed within governmental agencies. Technology areas of primary interest include batteries, fuel cells, and both overview and focused presentations on such are given by both governmental and contractual researchers. The forum also provides an opportunity to assess technology areas of mutual interest with respect to establishing collaborative and/or complementary programmatic interactions.