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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 OSTI2023

Interconnection Cost Analysis in ISO-New England

Electric transmission system operators (ISOs, RTOs, or utilities) require new large generators seeking to connect to the grid to undergo a series of impact studies before they can be built. This process establishes what new transmission equipment or upgrades may be needed before a project can connect to the system and assigns the costs of that equipment. Berkeley Lab has collected interconnection cost data for 194 projects in New England from interconnection studies performed between 2010 and 2021. Project-level cost summary data are available for download on this page. We find: -Interconnection costs have grown over time, especially for projects that withdraw. -Interconnection costs are highest for onshore wind, followed by solar and storage. Natural gas and offshore wind projects tend to cost less to interconnect, in comparison. -Economies of scale exist for solar and possibly storage projects, but not for other resource types. -Wind and solar projects requesting capacity network resource interconnection service have higher interconnection costs, despite being evaluated using the same interconnection standard in the analyzed studies. -Low and high interconnection costs can be found throughout the ISO-NE footprint. -Costs are split fairly evenly between investments at the point of interconnection and within the broader network for active and withdrawn projects, while complete projects incur most costs at the point of interconnection.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS2017

Evaluating Process Effectiveness to Reduce Risk

It is well documented that government agencies do not have the same incentive as the private sector to focus on process effectiveness and continual improvement of those processes. It is also well documented whenever government agencies fail to deliver efficient, effective, consistent, and fair services to the citizens. In spite of the various "reinventing government" and "effectiveness initiatives" of the past decades, and in spite of the efforts on the part of many agencies to improve, government in general still lags behind industry in creating a culture of effective processes and systems. While the tragic events that unfolded recently in Flint, Michigan, teach us that running government "like a business" does not always take the needs of the citizenry into account, there are many lessons and techniques from the private sector that government agencies can use to improve. The incentive to improve, while mandated by various administrations1, needs to come from within the workforce, in order to effectively take root. The best, most effective incentive is to reduce, control or eliminate risk. Government agencies face some of the same risks as the private sector, while some are unique. While ISO 310002 has been around since 2009, risk has taken on increased visibility within the private sector with the advent of the emphasis on risk-based thinking in ISO 9001:20153. The relationship between risk-based thinking and effective processes is simple and direct. Those processes that are well thought out and standardized (i.e. Plan-Do-Check-Act), will have taken into account the applicable policy, statutory, regulatory, safety, quality and technical parameters, which may not occur to someone performing the process with minimal experience or training; and thus protect the employees, the public and the agency from statutory and regulatory violations; delay in providing services; non-delivery of services; harm to public or employee safety and health; cost overruns; breaches in security; loss of confidence in government; failure of publicly funded projects; damage to the environment; ethics violations, and the list goes on; with local, national and even international consequences. The Plan-Do-Check-Act process, also known as the "process approach" can be used at any time to establish and standardize a process, and it can also be used to check periodically for "process creep" (i.e., informal, unauthorized changes that have occurred over time), any necessary updates and improvements. While ISO 9001 compliance is not mandated for all government agencies, if interpreted correctly, it can be useful in establishing a framework and implementing effective management systems and processes.4 Another method that can be used to evaluate effectiveness is the scorecard definitions in Mallory's Process Management Standard5 as a basis for evaluating work on the process level on effective, and continuously improved and improving processes. With processes on the lower end of the scale, agencies are vulnerable to a great many risks, with employees and managers making up many of the rules as they go, leading to the above listed negative results. Without clear guidance for nominal operations, off-nominal situations can, and do, increase the likelihood of chaos. In an increasingly technical environment, with inter-agency communication and collaboration becoming the norm, agencies need to come to grips with the fact that processes can become rapidly outdated, and that the technical community should take on an increased role in the maturation of the agency's processes. Industry has long known that effective processes are also efficient, and process improvement methods such as Kaizen, Lean, Six Sigma, 5S, and mistake proofing lead to increased productivity, improved quality, and decreased cost. Again, government agencies have different concerns, but inefficiencies and mistakes can have dire and wide reaching consequences for the public that they serve. While no one goes to work planning to cause harm, it is up to agencies to establish upper level systems, which make establishment and compliance with processes possible. Again, Mallory provides us with a Systems Management Standard6, similar to the Process Management Standard, with a scale of 0-5 for systems effectiveness and maturity. Deming determined that "eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individual employees to do better." 7 It is not just the working level employees who need effective processes, but the mid-and upper level managers as well. A disciplined management culture sets the tone for the employees, aids both routine and off-nominal decision-making, and incorporates risk -based thinking into the systems and processes as a matter of normal activity. Figure 1, illustrates the relationship between ineffective and effective processes and risk, through the use of the "stoplight" colors that are commonly used to show serious situations (red), situations which may be improving or deteriorating depending on trends (yellow), and situations that are under control and continuously improved (green).

Shepherd, Christena C.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

QuARC: Development of a Service to Enable FAIR-er Metadata

The ARC Project: The ARC Team located at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center conducts quality assessments of metadata records that catalog NASA’s collection of over 9,000 Earth observation data products, stored in a centralized database called the Common Metadata Repository (CMR). The ARC Team has developed a metadata quality assessment framework to evaluate metadata completeness, correctness, and consistency with the goal of making NASA’s data products more discoverable, accessible, and usable. ARC = Analysis and Review of the CMR

Earth Science Informatics↗
NASA NTRS1973

Flight-service evaluation of composite structural components

A review of programs aimed at flight-service evaluation of composite materials in various applications is presented. These flight-service programs are expected to continue for up to 5 years and include selective reinforcement of an airplane center wing box a helicopter tail cone, and composite replacements for commercial aircraft spoilers and fairings. These longtime flight-service programs will help provide the necessary information required by commercial airlines to commit advanced composites to aircraft structures with confidence. Results of these programs will provide information concerning the stability of composite materials when subjected to various flight environments.

Dexter, H. B.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Flight service evaluation of composite components on the Bell Helicopter model 206L: Design, fabrication and testing

The design, fabrication, and testing phases of a program to obtain long term flight service experience on representative helicopter airframe structural components operating in typical commercial environments are described. The aircraft chosen is the Bell Helicopter Model 206L. The structural components are the forward fairing, litter door, baggage door, and vertical fin. The advanced composite components were designed to replace the production parts in the field and were certified by the FAA to be operable through the full flight envelope of the 206L. A description of the fabrication process that was used for each of the components is given. Static failing load tests on all components were done. In addition fatigue tests were run on four specimens that simulated the attachment of the vertical fin to the helicopter's tail boom.

Zinberg, H.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

CONTAMINATION CONTROL FOR ULTRA-SENSITIVE LIFE DETECTION SCIENCE MISSIONS

"This study report summarizes technological developments in science-required contamination control for cost-capped, life-detection missions in the Solar System. Technology advances focus on developing implementable strategies to restrict contamination of the spacecraft and instruments by the launch vehicle hardware. Secondary bake out operations during cruise further reduce molecular contaminants down to femtomolar levels in the sample path. The study validated a full-spacecraft, deployable barrier design as an effective strategy to isolate the spacecraft from the pre-launch processing and launch environment (e.g., fairing acoustic materials). It accommodates late mounting of RTGs and other required prelaunch activities. A new, high-fidelity physics, contamination-transport model for particles (including cells and their parts) and science-relevant molecules (e.g., possible biomolecules) was developed to validate the barrier concept. Importantly, this model takes into account the physics of extremely clean surfaces achieved by the best traditional contamination engineering. The ability to deal with very low levels of particulate and molecular contamination makes this model unique among standard contamination modeling approaches. Modeling also demonstrated that a high-temperature bake out during interplanetary cruise of the sample collector that comprises the largest surface area in the sample path for an Enceladus orbiter reference mission, was extremely effective. This study included the evaluation of other details necessary for an effective contamination control strategy for life detection missions including feasibility of achieving parts per trillion level cleanliness for semi-volatile hydrocarbons in nitrogen purge gas, identification of launch vehicle services required for the baseline contamination control, and defining additional contamination control measures to be taken during launch operations. Key results of the study are: • New spacecraft barrier design that accommodates RTGs is readily cleanable and repairable. Deployment of a 1/3 scale model was successfully demonstrated. • The barrier reduces particle contamination (likely biological) from fairing to spacecraft by 1e-2 to 1e-3. • On-cruise bake-out of critical surfaces significantly reduced molecular contamination (by as much as 1e-12). Subsequently, the probability of a surface contamination particle being transported to an instrument by an ice particle is less than 5.1e-5 (for microbes specifically, 4.39e-10). The report concludes that a full-spacecraft barrier designed specifically for life-detection missions that require stringent control of particulate and molecular contaminates is an effective means of mitigating risks of false positive and negative results for life signature investigations. Further, secondary cleaning steps for critical sections of the sample path can be highly effective at reducing molecular contaminants to low femtomolar levels."

Contamination↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Contamination Control for Ultra-Sensitive Life-Detection Missions

"This study report summarizes technological developments in science-required contamination control for cost-capped, life-detection missions in the Solar System. Technology advances focus on developing implementable strategies to restrict contamination of the spacecraft and instruments by the launch vehicle hardware. Secondary bake out operations during cruise further reduce molecular contaminants down to femtomolar levels in the sample path. The study validated a full-spacecraft, deployable barrier design as an effective strategy to isolate the spacecraft from the pre-launch processing and launch environment (e.g., fairing acoustic materials). It accommodates late mounting of RTGs and other required prelaunch activities. A new, high-fidelity physics, contamination-transport model for particles (including cells and their parts) and science-relevant molecules (e.g., possible biomolecules) was developed to validate the barrier concept. Importantly, this model takes into account the physics of extremely clean surfaces achieved by the best traditional contamination engineering. The ability to deal with very low levels of particulate and molecular contamination makes this model unique among standard contamination modeling approaches. Modeling also demonstrated that a high-temperature bake out during interplanetary cruise of the sample collector that comprises the largest surface area in the sample path for an Enceladus orbiter reference mission, was extremely effective. This study included the evaluation of other details necessary for an effective contamination control strategy for life detection missions including feasibility of achieving parts per trillion level cleanliness for semi-volatile hydrocarbons in nitrogen purge gas, identification of launch vehicle services required for the baseline contamination control, and defining additional contamination control measures to be taken during launch operations. Key results of the study are: • New spacecraft barrier design that accommodates RTGs is readily cleanable and repairable. Deployment of a 1/3 scale model was successfully demonstrated. • The barrier reduces particle contamination (likely biological) from fairing to spacecraft by 1e-2 to 1e-3. • On-cruise bake-out of critical surfaces significantly reduced molecular contamination (by as much as 1e-12). Subsequently, the probability of a surface contamination particle being transported to an instrument by an ice particle is less than 5.1e-5 (for microbes specifically, 4.39e-10). The report concludes that a full-spacecraft barrier designed specifically for life-detection missions that require stringent control of particulate and molecular contaminates is an effective means of mitigating risks of false positive and negative results for life signature investigations. Further, secondary cleaning steps for critical sections of the sample path can be highly effective at reducing molecular contaminants to low femtomolar levels."

contamination, life detection, barrier, modeling↗
NASA NTRS1977

Technology of civil usage of composites

The paper deals with the use of advanced composites in structural components of commercial aircraft. The need for testing the response of a material system to service environment is discussed along with methods for evaluating design and manufacturing aspects of a built-up structure under environmental conditions and fail-safe (damage-tolerance) evaluation of structures. Crashworthiness aspects, the fire-hazard potential, and electrical damage of composite structures are considered. Practical operational experience with commercial aircraft is reviewed for boron/epoxy foreflaps, Kevlar/epoxy fillets and fairings, graphite/epoxy spoilers, graphite/polysulfone spoilers, graphite/epoxy floor posts, boron/aluminum aft pylon skin panels, graphite/epoxy engine nose cowl outer barrels, and graphite/epoxy upper aft rudder segments.

Kemp, D. E.↗
DOE OSTI2026

Thank You to Our Peer Reviewers in 2025

Peer reviewing is the foundation of modern scholarship, with external specialists being asked to fairly check and evaluate submitted work. This difficult and often time‐consuming activity is performed voluntarily, with the understanding that one's own scholarship shall benefit down the line from a careful analysis of its assumption, results, accuracy, and yes, language, as we are now evaluating someone else's work. At Space Weather, we pride ourselves on a fair but quick review process yielding high‐quality articles with a time from submission to first decision of less than 2 months. This would not be possible without the hard work of all our reviewers. Once a year, we take the occasion to name these reviewers to thank them for their service to the journal and the community.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
NASA NTRS1982

Durability of commercial aircraft and helicopter composite structures

The development of advanced composite technology during the past decade is discussed. Both secondary and primary components fabricated with boron, graphite, and Kevlar composites are evaluated. Included are spoilers, rudders, and fairings on commercial transports, boron/epoxy reinforced wing structure on C-130 military transports, and doors, fairings, tail rotors, vertical fins, and horizontal stabilizers on commercial helicopters. The development of composite structures resulted in advances in design and manufacturing technology for secondary and primary composite structures for commercial transports. Design concepts and inspection and maintenance results for the components in service are reported. The flight, outdoor ground, and controlled laboratory environmental effects on composites were also determined. Effects of moisture absorption, ultraviolet radiation, aircraft fuels and fluids, and sustained tensile stress are included. Critical parameters affecting the long term durability of composite materials are identified.

Dexter, H. B.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Federal Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management: Concept and Joint Evaluation with the Department of Defense

There has been growing demand for the use of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) domestically and globally. The versatility of vehicles to support many use cases and business models with broad advances in technology has created an industry with clear growth and continued growth potential. However, an early barrier to operations at scale has been the lack of a coordinated airspace management approach. To address that barrier, NASA pioneered a revolutionary airspace management paradigm that incorporated a federated, service-based approach to enable fair, safe, and scalable operations of small UAS in the nation’s airspace. This paradigm came to be known as UAS Traffic Management (UTM) [1]. During the UTM Project, NASA worked closely with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Industry to develop a system and supporting concept that incorporated the needs and perspectives of Industry and balanced them with the regulatory and operational needs of the FAA. Through development and rigorous testing, NASA evolved and strengthened the UTM concept and associated system architecture hand-in-hand with partners and stakeholders, which has gone on to take hold globally and move forward toward dedicated implementation in the US through rulemaking and standards bodies.

Abhay R. Borade↗
DOE OSTI2022

Hydrogen Energy Storage Integrated with a Combined Cycle Plant

A project is being developed that will build upon the existing infrastructure and resources at the Intermountain Power Project (IPP) site to provide reliable, dispatchable energy and to support the transmission of renewable energy resources while transitioning to an economical green energy future. The concept study depicted in this report outlines a techno-economic optimization to fulfill the demand for 30% vol hydrogen co-firing in the IPP 840 MW advanced class combined cycle power plant. In an initial step, a site assessment concluded the site has sufficient land available to co-locate a hydrogen production and storage facility. The team evaluated and defined a scalable concept that considered technology characteristics, including input and output models to be used for optimization purposes. The concept for the hydrogen production and storage system integrates multiple technologies, to determine system size and scalable approach, for each of the technologies evaluated, the team defined component and subcomponent sizes, minimum and maximum capacity, modularity, component utility consumption (electric, water), component flexibility and servicing, layout, and technology status, as well as technology alternatives. For hydrogen generation, the project considers Siemens Energy’s Silyzer-300 (S300) technology, a 17.5 MW modular Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer. For the S300 configuration, the team determined that three S300 arrays, or approximately 1,000 kg/hr, per block would yield a compact block design. This configuration results in a fairly wide and flexible arrangement that fits well into the spaces available at the site. Therefore, the overall design approach is based on multiple identical blocks of 3 arrays to minimize engineering cost and optimize constructability. In parallel, a transmission screening study was conducted to determine any potential transmission constraints from the energy sources that could feed the hydrogen production equipment. The study results show that minimum transmission constraints would be encountered to deliver 400 MW renewable generation from southern California, or south-central Wyoming. At last, the techno-economic analysis concluded that a scenario that uses solar and wind power yields the lowest levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH 2 ) production and the lowest cost per tonne of CO 2 reduced. In this optimized scenario, the hydrogen production plant was determined as 6,201 kg/hr and the hydrogen storage (underground cavern) was determined as 4,600 tonnes. The resulting capacity factor for the hydrogen production plant was 66.33% with 8,745 operating hours in one year. This techno-economic analysis provided various options for integrating hydrogen storage at the Intermountain Power Plant site to co-fire the CCPP units. The results provide insightful data about the magnitude of capacity needed and the economics of producing hydrogen and reducing CO 2 emissions.

08 HYDROGEN↗
NASA NTRS1993

Flight service evaluation of composite components on the Bell helicopter model 206L

This is the final report on the advanced composite components which were placed in service on the 206L LongRanger helicopters in the continental United States, Canada, and Alaska. This report covers all test data which was gathered, as well as maintenance histories of the parts. The previous reports describe the fabrication, service experiences, and test data through 1986. This report contains information from these references, as well as data gathered after 1986. The status of the 40 sets of components is discussed. Each set consisted of a vertical fin, forward fairing, litter door, and baggage door. Almost 500,000 flight hours were accumulated on the 160 parts, with the high-time part accumulating 14,687 flight hours. Over 60 percent of the parts were destructively tested to measure strength and stiffness retention over the course of the program. The vertical fins had the greatest strength retention followed by the litter doors. The baggage doors had the poorest retention of strength. There was very little difference in property retention between the four primary operating regions: Northwest U.S., Southwest U.S., Gulf of Mexico Coastal Region, and the Northeast U.S. and Eastern Canada Region. The field problems have ranged from two lightning-struck fins to significant delaminations in the baggage doors. There was only one environmentally related field incident, in which the glass windows on the litter doors were found to loosen due to high temperatures experienced in the southwest region.

Wilson, Henry↗
NASA NTRS2018

Short-Haul Revitalization Study Final Report

A feasibility study was performed for an advanced commercial short-haul aircraft to evaluate the potential for increased service for short-haul flights that operate out of regional and community airports. An analysis of potential origin-destination markets and trip distances resulted in a seat capacity selection of 48 passengers and a design range of 600 NM. A down-select of advanced technologies resulted in a hybrid-electric propulsion system being chosen as the primary enabling technology. A conceptual design of the advanced aircraft was developed, and a mission and sizing analysis was performed, comparing variants of the advanced aircraft with different levels of electrification. Fairly aggressive levels of electrification and battery specific energy are needed for the hybridelectric architecture to realize any benefit in terms of total energy cost for the 600 NM design mission. The development and operational costs were estimated for the advanced aircraft and compared to the baseline. This analysis demonstrated the negative effect of the cost to develop the hybrid-electric technology on the eventual operating cost. A market analysis was performed to determine possible passenger demand for the advanced shorthaul aircraft. According to the market analysis, there is potential demand for such an aircraft, but not necessarily in many of the smaller regional and community airports that were the intended beneficiaries of this new aircraft concept.

Marien, Ty V.↗
NASA NTRS1993

A Report on Stochastic Fairness Queueing (SFQ) Experiments

SRI International (SRI) has developed an improved queueing algorithm, known as Stochastic Fairness Queueing (SFQ), for best-effort traffic (i.e., traffic that does not require any guaranteed service). SFQ is a probablistic variant of strict fair queueing where instead of a single queue being allocated per flow, a fixed number of queues are used and a hash function maps the IP source and destination to a particular queue. A seed to the hash function is also perturbed occasionally to help distribute the flows amongst different queues when more than one flow maps to the same queue during the lifetime of the flow. SFQ provides 'fair' access by trying to ensure that each flow from source to destination host obtains equal access to the available bandwidth. This report covers a series of experiments performed on DARTnet evaluating the behavior and performance of SFQ against a FIFO queueing discipline. These experiments were designed to show SFQ's advantages and performance, and include tests demonstrating: Fair utilization of available resources; Starvation prevention; Graceful degradation under overload conditions; and Resource usage. In general, the experiments do show that SFQ is better than FIFO queueing at allocating bandwidth equally among a set of flows. SFQ also prevents a stream from dominating the available bandwidth, which seems to be a tendency with FIFO queueing (i.e., if a flow demands more than its share of the available bandwidth, with FIFO queueing that stream receives a disproportionate amount when compared to flows demanding less than their share). Furthermore, SFQ seems to reward 'nice' users of the network by providing a lower variance in delay and more throughput when their resource demand is less than their available share. Both SFQ and FIFO queueing seem to degrade fairly well as the network becomes saturated and to recover well as the network becomes less congested. Not unexpectedly, FIFO queueing is a little more efficient than SFQ-the delays are less and the throughput slightly higher because SFQ requires more processing. However, the performance difference between the two queueing disciplines is relatively small. However, the experiments do point out some interesting behavior. FIFO queueing can behave better than SFQ with seed perturbation. We recommend further evaluation of the hash function and the seed perturbation technique. There are probably weaknesses in their current selection that cause this unexpected behavior. SFQ also seems to possess good scaling properties. To verify this, more experiments with a larger number of streams from more hosts need to be executed and examined, including the staggered introduction of streams. Staggering the streams may prove important, because graphs in the degradation experiment revealed some unexpected increases and decreases in throughput, which should be examined. This may again be due to the interaction of the hash function with the seed perturbation but it may also be related to some other unknown problem.

Denny, Barbara A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Some Aeronautical Communications Experiments

Classically there has existed an asymmetry between the computing and communicating sides of aerospace systems. Over the past few decades, this asymmetry has shifted to favoring communication link technologies, meaning that advancements in available central processing units (CPUs), storage devices, and internal data buses have stagnated. Indeed, the increased emphasis placed on refining subsystem performance such as with antenna bandwidth in phased arrays, amplifier power efficiency, software defined radio (SDR) flexibility and encoding for data compression and error correction has given rise to successful debuts of multi-gigabit-per-second data return from long space-link distances. These accomplishments are easily quantifiable through link budgets and illustrate what is possible, but also reveal the deficiencies in overall communications capabilities. In particular, the ever-accelerating presence of aerospace vehicles gives rise to newer and larger classes of challenges to address the needs of 21st century systems. Furthermore remote sensing and imaging capabilities have far outpaced our ability to transmit their products to the ground, so we are increasingly dependent on pre-processing and downselection to contend with the communications bottleneck. No longer may we depend upon the constrained logistics in delivering end-to-end data delivery through manual reconfigurations, static event scheduling and execution on a per-vehicle basis, for these methods do not scale and therefore must give way to dynamic, networked approaches with an overall systems view in mind. Emerging mission requirements exhibit a trend toward multiple smaller-scale vehicles working together to perform dissimilar observations. Such operations necessitate sensor fusion across a constellation, and where data processing may be distributed throughout a fairly disconnected network whose topology changes over time in non-deterministic manners. Individual communications link performance is still very relevant to deploying an effective communications system, but now must be embedded within a greater architecture of capability to optimally utilize the bandwidth available from each link to generate an ultimate end-to-end quality of service. The deleterious effects of timing uncertainty across the arrangement presents a challenge to measurement synchronization and delivery, so a successful deployed system needs to be tolerant to the delays inherent in time-of-light between elements and digital processing latencies existing at each node. In this presentation we share the flight test results from a high performance Gbps laser communications terminal evaluated with a suite of store and forward capabilities called High-rate Delay Tolerant Networking (HDTN). The communications payload is operated over Lake Erie across a range of configurations including several convergence layers, and is evaluated to determine recovery time after link disruptions, information loss, efficiency and speed. The effectiveness of utilizing a flying laboratory to increase the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of an integrated system in relevant environments is discussed, as well as the value of conducting aeronautics experiments to retire risk for technology infusion into space missions. Upcoming flight campaigns will be presented, including opportunities to demonstrate secure command and control, data intensive hyperspectral imaging, quantum link characterization, 4k High Definition (HD) video streaming and internetworked space-ground-aero relay operations. These experiments will pave the way for future missions which will depend upon interoperability across disparate government and privately owned networks, involve contention with uncertain and dynamic timing, and require agility to autonomously configure optimal parameters across networks of ever-increasing size and complexity to ensure data delivery. https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/space/scan/acs/tech-studies/dtn/

Daniel Raible↗
DOE OSTI2024

Supporting ARPA-E Power Grid Optimization (Final Report)

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Arizona State University (ASU), Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Texas A&M University (TAMU), The University of Texas at Austin (UT), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) supported the ARPA-E Grid Optimization (GO) Competition by providing a common problem formulation, data format, datasets, evaluation mechanism, scoring, rules, and results that resulted in the awarding of $\$9.24$ million dollars to teams from academia, industry, and national labs for solving three sets of increasingly difficult non-linear, security- constrained AC Optimal Powerflow (AC-OPF) optimization problems in order to increase the efficiency of the US Electric Grid. It is estimated that a 1% increase in efficiency can save $\$1$ billion. Current industry practices typically use a linear DC model (DC-OPF) in order solve the OPF problem within the time constraints of the operation schedule. The GO Competition challenges the best power engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists to make possible operational decisions based on accurate physical models. To accomplish this, the GO Competition created a series of Challenges and funded teams to produce the best solver. Challenge 1 was to solve the security constrained Alternating Current Optimal Power Flow (ACOPF) problem. Challenge 2 extended that to by adding adjustable transformer tap ratios, phase shifting transformers, switchable shunts, price-responsive demand, ramp rate constrained generators and loads, and fast-start unit commitment (UC). Furthermore, Challenge 2 was a maximization problem while Challenge 1 was a minimization problem. While Challenge 3 was being developed, the entrants were invited to find better solutions to the Challenge 2 synthetic datasets with no restrictions on time, hardware, or algorithms. The Challenge 2 solutions turned out to be very good. Challenge 3 expanded the Challenge 2 problem further by using multiperiod dynamic markets, including advisory models for extreme weather events, day-ahead markets, and the real-time markets with an extended look-ahead. These problems included active bid-in demand and topology optimization. Together the Challenges used nearly 30 million CPU hours. Since each team was working on the same problem, using the same data, and running on the same hardware, fair comparisons could be drawn as to the best solver. The datasets were varied enough, however, that the best solver for one dataset was not necessarily the best at another, so cumulative scores were used. The process was managed by the PNNL maintained website https://GOCompetition.energy.gov, where Entrants could find information about the problem, the data, the rules, submit their solver for evaluation, and see the scores of all the competing teams on a Leaderboard. Interest was world-wide but only American teams were eligible for prizes. The Competition has produced 34 journal articles 115 papers and been cited over 500 times in the literature, including 12 dissertations (4 from foreign countries; Columbia (2), Germany, and Italy) and 3 from the DOE ExaScale project. Software developed by Pearl Street Technologies for Challenges 1 and 2 is now deployed by Southwest Power Pool (SPP) and Midcontinent Independent Service Operator (MISO). Other teams have received inquiries from venture capitalists. Google DeepMind has thanked the Competition for making the datasets developed for the Competition public. They are using it to train machine learning models. The larger datasets have billions of unknowns to be solved for, but only a small percent matter in the final solution. Knowing what unknowns are important can dramatically speedup the solution.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Modeling the Functional Forms of Grid Disturbances

This report introduces a functional form that may be used to quantitatively predict the impacts of new grid tools and changing system qualities on the likelihoods, durations, and depths of various grid disturbances. Each disturbance scenario is modeled to have three component stages—avoidance, reactance and recovery, which together parametrically estimate one disturbance’s impacts. The modeled scenario is then placed and replicated within an analysis period to represent the likelihood or frequency of the scenario and its consequent impacts. Whereas analysts have struggled to define and apply metrics for grid resilience, the functional form introduced by this report shares units of measurement with accepted grid-status measures (e.g., numbers of customers currently experiencing a service outage). Furthermore, the integrated and averaged functional form over an analysis period provides a meaningful normalized performance metric (e.g., customer outage minutes per year) that is ultimately independent of the duration of the period of. The approach may be applied similarly regardless of the severity or frequency of the disturbances that are being analyzed. Because metrics can be chosen to be identical in both the hypothetical future and the actual historical past, the historical past eventually becomes the test of the future predictions, at least in a statistical sense. The authors originally developed this approach to facilitate analysis of the effects of transactive energy (TE) systems effects on electric power grid resilience. TE systems invite energy suppliers and consumers to actively collaborate toward the discovery of, and their responses to, the locational value of energy. The findings from this process are often embodied as energy prices, the dynamics of which indicate the locational value of energy and can further represent important grid service needs. While some academic papers claim to quantify the value of a specific TE system design toward grid resilience, the answer, in general, has been elusive. Not only do multiple and conflicting definitions of resilience and reliability exist, but countless TE systems are being invented. We conclude the following: (1) The ideal analysis should harmonize rather than differentiate resilience and reliability. Therefore, this report uses the more general term disturbance whenever the overloaded terms resilience and reliability can be avoided. (2) The effectiveness of TE systems must be mapped to underlying qualities of a TE system, thereby avoiding presumptions that every TE design offers similar advantages. The authors seek to evaluate the parametric effects of TE system qualities (e.g., spatial granularity, granularity of time steps, length of future prediction horizon) on avoiding, reacting to, and recovering from grid disturbances. Furthermore, any advantages (or disadvantages) must be fairly compared with the many alternative tools, systems, and strategies that might offer comparable benefits.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗