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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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At least 379 records · Page 21
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Demonstrating the Transient System Impact of Cyber-Physical Events Through Scalable Transmission and Distribution (T&D) Co-Simulation

Modern power systems become more vulnerable to cyber threats due to their growing interconnectivity, interdependence, and complexity. Widespread deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs) further expands the threat landscape to the grid edge, where fewer cybersecurity protections exist. In this article, a systematic cyber-physical events demonstration, enabled by an integrated transmission, distribution, and communication co-simulation framework, is performed. It analyzes cyber risks to power grid under DER-enabled automatic generation control from different angles. Unlike existing works, the simulation captures millisecond-to-minutes frequency and voltage transient dynamics at a cross-region system scale.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Lithuania 100% Renewable Energy Study - Interim Results: Electricity System Scenarios for 2030 [Slides]

Lithuania's Energy Vision aims to achieve self-sufficiency in electricity generation by 2035 and transition to 100% renewable energy as soon as possible while maintaining affordability, reliability, and energy security. The Lithuania Energy Agency (LEA) is partnering with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to conduct the Lithuania 100% Renewable Energy Study (Lithuania 100) to provide evidence-based analysis for development of Lithuania's National Energy Independence Strategy. The Lithuania 100 Study leverages unique tools and capabilities of NREL to provide rigorous technical analysis of clean energy policies to achieve 100% renewable energy, and assess impacts on electricity grid operations, hydrogen system development, electricity distribution networks, air quality, and human health outcomes. The study is supported by a stakeholder committee chaired by the Ministry of Energy of Lithuania and implemented by four technical working groups. This report provides highlights of key interim results from modeling of Lithuania's near-term electricity grid through the year 2030. Results show that Lithuania has sufficient renewable energy potential, flexible generation capacity, and interconnection with neighboring European Union countries to reliably meet projected 2030 electricity demand with 100% renewable energy. A range of scenarios were modeled, each of which achieves at least 100% renewable energy in electricity, on average over the year, by 2030. Potential demands for hydrogen across industrial and transportation sectors were also evaluated, as well as the cost of hydrogen produced in Lithuania by 2030.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Energy 101: Utilities [Slides]

The Energy 101: Utilities presentation, developed for the Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project (ETIPP), provides an overview of utilities. It covers fundamental concepts, technologies, considerations, case studies, and additional resources.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Evaluating the Grid Impact of Oregon Offshore Wind [Slides]

This analysis used high-resolution offshore wind data and a detailed production cost model (PCM) of the Western Interconnection to explore the value and operational impact of integrating offshore wind along Oregon's coastline. Leveraging local technical stakeholder expertise and input, we determined a set of scenarios to explore. These scenarios vary both offshore wind capacities and the Western Interconnection generation and transmission infrastructure. From the scenario modeling and analysis, we identified the following key findings. In addition, we simulated a subset of the scenarios for a range of historical weather years (2007-2013), to understand the robustness of our findings to different weather conditions. Trans-coastal transmission constraints and congestion are the key drivers to the curtailment of Oregon offshore wind. Once power can be delivered into the Willamette Valley, there are few system constraints that lead to a significant curtailment of offshore wind off the coast of Oregon. Approximately 2.6 GW of installed offshore wind capacity can be integrated into Oregon's power system without major upgrades to trans-coastal transmission while avoiding significant curtailment. The system value provided by offshore wind ranges between $\$65$ /MWh and $\$85$ /MWh across the various scenarios considered. Offshore wind heavily influences the flow of the cross Cascade transmission. Across all scenarios, we found a robust relationship of approximately 500-550 MW decrease in the hourly flow of the cross Cascade transmission for every 1,000 MW of hourly offshore wind generation. However, we also found there was not a strong relationship between the highest cross-Cascade transmission flow hours and high offshore wind generation, limiting the extent to which offshore wind can be considered a non-wires alternative to cross cascade transmission. Depending on the meteorological year, 880-1,580 MW and 1,650-3,100 MW can be counted on to serve coastal loads with 2.6 GW and 5 GW of offshore wind capacity, respectively. Offshore wind allows for more optimal daily and hourly scheduling of hydropower, while still complying with various technical and regulatory constraints on the water resource. Oregon offshore wind has the potential to contribute to the evening net load peak in California (i.e., mitigate duck curve challenges), however transmission congestion between California and Oregon limits this contribution. Co-located storage at the point of interconnection for offshore wind reduces curtailment when trans-coastal transmission is not upgraded, providing a non-wires alternative to increase offshore wind capacity beyond 2.6 GW.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Enabling Grid-Aware Market Participation of Aggregate Flexible Resources

Increasing integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) within distribution feeders provides unprecedented flexibility at the distribution-transmission interconnection. With the new FERC 2222 order, DER aggregations are allowed to participate in energy market. To enable market participation, these virtual power plants need to provide their generation cost curves. This paper proposes efficient optimization formulations and solution approaches for the characterization of hourly as well as multi-time-step generation cost curves for a distribution system with high penetration of DERs. Network and DER constraints are taken into account when deriving these cost curves, and they enable active distribution systems to bid into the electricity market. The problems of deriving linear and quadratic cost curves are formulated as robust optimization problems and tractable reformulation/solution algorithm are developed to facilitate efficient calculations. The proposed formulations and solution algorithm are validated on a realistic test feeder with high penetration of flexible resources.

aggregated distributed energy resources↗
DOE OSTI2023

Eastern Interconnection Wide-Area Oscillation Assessment and Study Report

To meet the government mandates such as Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), conventional synchronous generators with rotating mass are being displaced by inverter-based resources (IBRs), leading to high penetration of renewable energy sources (RES). As a result, the inherent properties and characteristics of the transformed generation mix may significantly impact the grid behaviour, and it is of paramount significance that the impact and the consequences of the resource mix change is thoroughly understood to adopt measures to maintain reliable grid operations. Of great concern is the inter-area low-frequency oscillation, which usually propagates through a large region and has a system-wide impact. Such oscillations may lead to unnecessary or inadvertent tripping of generators, that may be simply reacting to the oscillation originating from geographically remote sites. Such tripping of generators can lead to cascading outages, system split and load loss events. Over the years, several system-wide oscillation events have been observed across all three North American interconnections. This project titled Wide-area Oscillation Assessment and Trending Study, sponsored by the Office of Electricity (OE) of the Department of Energy (DOE), aims to conduct the required research to capture and investigate the potential changes in wide-area oscillatory performance of the system as a result of resource mix transition. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) conducted this research and technical staff of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) served as advisors to the project. The primary objective of this study is to assess whether there are significant trends in the power system wide-area oscillatory behaviours, as a result of the generation-mix changes due to the increased penetration of RES in the U.S. Eastern Interconnection (EI). The analysis presented in this report can serve as reference for future grid planning and operation of the EI system. This research conducted in this project evaluates the wide-area oscillatory behaviour of the EI, using a model-based approach for potential future resource mixes, and the measurement-based analysis with 21-month phasor measurement unit (PMU) time series. The oscillation modes in EI system along with the impact of the changes of the generation mix on the frequency and damping ratio (DR) of the oscillations have been studied.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Vehicle-to-manufacturing (V2M) system: A novel approach to improve energy demand flexibility for demand response towards sustainable manufacturing

The U.S. manufacturing sector accounts for 77% of the industrial energy consumption, but its participation in demand response (DR) programs is largely lagged behind. The limited flexibility in production scheduling under high capacity utilization and the lack of DR schemes that incorporate energy demand flexibility measures are deemed as major barriers. In this study, a framework of the interactive vehicles-to-manufacturing (V2M) energy sharing system is proposed to improve the energy demand flexibility of the aggregated system and enhance the DR effectiveness for manufacturers. The V2M-based DR scheme aims to reduce the energy cost by load shifting through joint production and energy sharing control, which can eventually promote manufacturing DR implementation even under high capacity utilization requirements and dynamic real-time electricity prices. The V2M system is modeled based on a discrete-Markov chain considering the complex interconnections among various manufacturing resources and multi-directional energy flows among manufacturing facilities, electric vehicles, and the power grid. Based on the system model, a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem is formulated to identify the optimal DR scheme. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is validated through comparisons with traditional manufacturing DR schemes. Finally, the results show that a 2.1 to 6.5 times energy demand flexibility improvement and an additional 4.7% to 6.9% energy cost reduction can be achieved by the proposed approach.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Distributed Solar in Tamil Nadu

With India’s ambitious renewable energy targets and decreasing rooftop solar prices, customer adoption of rooftop solar on Tamil Nadu’s distribution network is set to increase in the coming years. With that comes the challenge of how to assess the impact of these emerging distributed energy resources. In an effort to help with such an assessment, NREL has created a holistic analysis framework for Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Company (TANGEDCO). The Emerging technologies Management and Risk evaluation on distribution Grids Evolution (EMeRGE) analysis framework and tool will help TANGEDCO and other distribution companies (DISCOMs) in India analyze new interconnection applications and evaluate the system risk impact over time with new emerging DERs.

Children's Investment Fund Foundation↗
DOE OSTI2025

Large Load Management and Grid Planning

This presentation will cover these topics, followed by a discussion and Q&A: Grid impacts of load growth of the current bulk power system, a review of recent trends and events related to large load integration, what might these new large loads look like, what are options for reducing costs and timelines of integration, and working toward a framework for identifying hot spots for efficiently interconnecting large loads.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Modeling and control of nuclear–renewable integrated energy systems: Dynamic system model for green electricity and hydrogen production

The need for decarbonization and diversification of energy resources has led to the development of integrated energy systems (IESs), where multiple resources supply more than one energy sector. Here, one such IES with small modular nuclear reactors and renewables (wind and solar) as generating resources, catering to the demand of the electric grid while producing hydrogen for industries, is modeled in this paper. The physics-based component models are represented using the Modelica language and interconnected to form the IES. The control and coordination of the overall system are ensured by designing a suitable control architecture composed of individual subsystem-level controls and supervisory control. The dynamic performance and the load-following capability of the IES are evaluated, while satisfying the safe operational limits of the components. Different configurations and modes of IES operation are considered, where the adaptability of the control system in the presence of varying demands and renewable generations is validated. The simulation results indicate that hydrogen as a flexible load facilitates the supply of varying grid demand. Additionally, the renewables are also accommodated into the IES owing to the flexibility of the balance of plant associated with the nuclear reactors.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Clean Grid Vision: A U.S. Perspective - Chapter 1. Clean Grid Scenarios

Chapter 1: Clean Grid Scenarios serves as a broad introduction to the type of future power systems envisioned in the Clean Grid Vision: one with high penetrations of variable renewable energy generation (for example, more than 53% nationally and up to 73% in the Eastern Interconnection) and significant share of natural gas. Our study shows that the conterminous United States has adequate resources to support such systems with current technologies, and these systems can be operated cost-effectively to meet all sub-hourly demand and reserve requirements.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Architecture for Co-Simulation of Transportation and Distribution Systems with Electric Vehicle Charging at Scale in the San Francisco Bay Area

This work describes the Grid-Enhanced, Mobility-Integrated Network Infrastructures for Extreme Fast Charging (GEMINI) architecture for the co-simulation of distribution and transportation systems to evaluate EV charging impacts on electric distribution systems of a large metropolitan area and the surrounding rural regions with high fidelity. The current co-simulation is applied to Oakland and Alameda, California, and in future work will be extended to the full San Francisco Bay Area. It uses the HELICS co-simulation framework to enable parallel instances of vetted grid and transportation software programs to interact at every model timestep, allowing high-fidelity simulations at a large scale. This enables not only the impacts of electrified transportation systems across a larger interconnected collection of distribution feeders to be evaluated, but also the feedbacks between the two systems, such as through control systems, to be captured and compared. The findings are that with moderate passenger EV adoption rates, inverter controls combined with some distribution system hardware upgrades can maintain grid voltages within ANSI C.84 range A limits of 0.95 to 1.05 p.u. without smart charging. However, EV charging control may be required for higher levels of charging or to reduce grid upgrades, and this will be explored in future work.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Exploring the Grid Value Potential of Offshore Wind Energy in Oregon

The grid value of Oregon's offshore wind resource is considered through the lenses of (i) resource complementarity with the hydroelectric system and other Variable Renewable Energy resources, (ii) load complementarity with the four balancing authorities with territory in Oregon, and (iii) spatial value to regional and coastal grids as represented through a Production Cost Model of the WECC system. Capacity implications of the interactions between offshore wind and the historical east-to-west power flows of the region are reviewed. The existing system is shown to accommodate 2GW of offshore wind interconnections without curtailment.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Measurement-Based Approach for Inertia-Trend Analysis of the US Western Interconnection

Rising deployment of inverter-based resources (IBRs), characterized by a lack of rotating mass, is decreasing the total inertia of the system. This can lead to an increased Rate of Change of Frequency (RoCoF) during the disturbance and false activation of protective devices. There is a need to assess the inertia over the past decade amidst the evolving landscape of renewable energy sources to develop strategies for integrating energy storage, enhancing resilience measures, and ensuring the stable and reliable operation of the grid. Therefore, a realistic assessment of the inertia trend using a measurement-based approach that addresses the limitations of existing models is proposed. An inertia study of the Western Interconnection in the United States is performed utilizing the data from 2013 to 2022, obtained from FNET/ GridEye network. The three-second RoCoF time window is chosen for the study as it showed an optimum balance between a strong correlation with the power imbalance (ΔP) and minimum inclusion of primary response from governor. The obtained inertia trend result shows a small percentage declination of inertia over the decade. By examining the result alongside a generation mix graph, insights are gained into the dynamic interplay between shifting energy landscape and system inertia.

Dulal, Saurav↗
DOE OSTI2020

Assessing DER Network Cybersecurity Defences in a Power-Communication Co-Simulation Environment

Increasing penetrations of interoperable distributed energy resources (DER) in the electric power system are expanding the power system attack surface. Maloperation or malicious control of DER equipment can now cause substantial disturbances to grid operations. Fortunately, many options exist to defend and limit adversary impact on these newly-created DER communication networks, which typically traverse the public internet. However, implementing these security features will increase communication latency, thereby adversely impacting real-time DER grid support service effectiveness. In this work, a collection of software tools called SCEPTRE were used to create a co-simulation environment where SunSpec-compliant PV inverters were deployed as virtual machines and interconnected to simulated communication network equipment. Network segmentation, encryption, and moving target defence security features were deployed on the control network to evaluate their influence on cybersecurity metrics and power system performance. The results indicated that adding these security features did not impact DER-based grid control systems but improved the cybersecurity posture of the network when implemented appropriately.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Verification of a Fluid-Based Plasma-Edge Model Within the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) Framework

As the goal of achieving fusion power on the grid comes closer to fruition, fully coupled multiphysics models of fusion devices will be crucial. These models must incorporate the interconnected phenomena of these devices, including plasma physics, neutronics, first wall interactions, and tritium transport. Currently, there are two main approaches to developing these platforms: (1) loosely coupled, where one couples existing codes and solvers together through input and output parameters and data, and (2) tightly coupled, where one develops the necessary models within a singular, integrated framework. This work focuses on the latter approach for magnetically confined fusion devices by developing a fluid-based plasma-edge model within the Multiphysics Object Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) Framework. This effort is coordinated with other efforts to develop, test, demonstrate, and deploy fusion relevant multiphysics capabilities including electromagnetics, particle-in-cell plasma, tritium transport, and fusion blanket design. This new model is an expansion of the MOOSE-based plasma application, Zapdos, which was originally formulated to model low-temperature, non-magnetized plasma processes. Verification studies have been conducted using newly developed magnetic plasma capabilities. These involved convergence analyses utilizing the method of manufactured solutions to verify new operators and case studies. A modular approach was taken here to demonstrate increasingly complicated simulation scenarios, which included a singular fluid with uniform magnetic field case, a singular fluid with spatially varying magnetic field case, and a coupled multifluid case.

70 - PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Policy and Cost Allocation Considerations for Large Electric Load Interconnections: Emerging Policy Trends in Rate Structures, Interconnection, and Cost Impacts on Other System Users

Load growth in the United States is rapidly increasing: load from data centers alone has tripled over the past decade, and this growth is forecasted to continue accelerating. These and other large electric loads (LELs) promise economic benefits at the state and local level, but their deployment has also led to increasing concerns about grid impacts and potential cost shifts onto other ratepayers. Legislators, regulators, and other stakeholders are increasingly proposing and enacting policies in effort to balance these and other considerations. This white paper reviews state-level legislation, selected utility rate cases, and relevant federal orders in an effort to describe and categorize relevant trends in policies related to LEL cost allocation, interconnection, and deployment. Policy categories identified through this review include tax incentives, rate actions, and requirements related to interconnection, permitting, and reporting. By offering a taxonomy of policies, this white paper aims to offer a resource to policymakers and other stakeholders navigating this transformative moment for the grid.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗