Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “distributed energy resources management”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 415 records · Page 23

Guest Editorial: Special Section on Sustainable Energy for Enhancing Grid Resiliency

Extreme weather threatens lives, disables communities, and devastates energy generation, transmission, and distribution systems. These extreme events are likely to become more frequent or more intense due to climate change. Energy networks have shown significant vulnerability during record hurricanes, deadly heat waves, destructive wildfires, and winter storms in the past few years. Because of the energy transition process, modern power grids will feature a high penetration level of the use of renewable resources. The adoption of renewable energy and the rise of omnidirectional power delivery mean that our energy network is more decentralized than ever. In this new environment, grid operation becomes more complex, and achieving resiliency is more difficult than in the past. Many utilities are seeking the latest technologies to improve energy security and responsiveness to severe events. On the one hand, sustainable energy resources can provide emergency power and assist grid restoration in disastrous events. On the other hand, their volatility, susceptibility, interdependency, and other unique features must be carefully considered when being used for grid resilience enhancement. This special section brings together 22 papers that range from innovative research advances tackling fundamental challenges of achieving more resilient grids to real-world demonstrations of leveraging sustainable energy resources to enhance grid resiliency. These papers can be categorized into three groups.

climate change↗

Challenges and Opportunities of Integrating Electric Vehicles in Electricity Distribution Systems

Increased charging needs from widespread adoption of battery electric vehicles (EVs) will impact electricity demand. This will likely require a combination of potentially costly distribution infrastructure upgrades and synergistic grid-transportation solutions such as managed charging and strategic charger placement. Fully implementing such strategic planning and control methods - including business models and mechanisms to engage and compensate consumers - can minimize or even eliminate required grid upgrades. Moreover, there are also opportunities for EV charging to support the grid by helping solve existing and emerging distribution system challenges associated with increasing distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar generation and battery energy storage. This paper reviews the potential impacts of EV charging on electricity distribution systems and describes methods from the literature to efficiently integrate EVs into distribution systems.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Evaluating the Curtailment Risk of Non-Firm Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Plants under a Novel Last-In First-Out Principle of Access Interconnection Agreement

With the increasing share of distributed energy resources on the electric grid, utility companies are facing significant decisions about infrastructure upgrades. An alternative to extensive and capital-intensive upgrades is to offer non-firm interconnection opportunities to distributed generators, via a coordinated operation of utility scale resources. This paper introduces a novel flexible interconnection option based on the last-in, first-out principles of access aimed at minimizing the unnecessary non-firm generation energy curtailment by balancing access rights and contribution to thermal overloads. Although we focus on solar photovoltaic (PV) plants in this work, the introduced flexible interconnection option applies to any distributed generation technology. The curtailment risk of individual non-firm PV units is evaluated across a range of PV penetration levels in a yearlong quasi-static time-series simulation on a real-world feeder. The results show the importance of the size of the curtailment zone in the curtailment risk distribution among flexible generation units as well as that of the “access right” defined by the order in which PV units connect to the grid. Case study results reveal that, with a proper selection of curtailment radius, utilities can reduce the total curtailment of flexible PV resources by up to more than 45%. Findings show that non-firm PV generators can effectively avoid all thermal limit-related upgrade costs.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

torc (Torc Workflow Management System) [SWR-24-127]

This software package orchestrates execution of a workflow of jobs on distributed computing resources. It is optimized for use on HPCs with Slurm, but also can be used in the cloud and on local computers. Please refer to the documentation at https://nrel.github.io/torc

Thom, Daniel [National Renewable Energy Laboratory↗

Volt/VAR Optimization (VVO) Application on GridAPPS-D Platform

There is a large increment in the distributed energy resources (DERs) installation and deployments of smart sensing devices and communication infrastructure; hence, the power distribution network is swiftly evolving from a passive network to an active network. This motivates the development of advanced applications to operate power distribution systems for higher efficiency and reliability. These advanced applications are model-based and data-driven. This requires an advanced distribution management system (ADMS) to provide required data for the optimal operation of the distribution systems by coordinating various grid controllable devices. In this paper a Volt-VAR optimization (VVO) application to coordinate the grid’s legacy and new voltage control devices for conservation voltage reduction (CVR) is deployed on the GridAPPS-D platform (an open-source platform ) for ADMS application development. The VVO application is validated for various operating conditions on using modified IEEE 8500-node distribution test feeders. Further, the application is successfully deployed on the GridAPPS-D platform.

Jha, Rahul↗

Netload Range Cost Curves for Coordinated Transmission-Distribution Planning Under DER Growth Uncertainty

The increasing penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) requires better coordination between transmission and distribution (T&D) planning to ensure system security and cost efficiency. However, misaligned planning horizons, computational burdens, and privacy concerns hinder effective coordination, leading to either underutilized resources caused by overinvestments or reliability risks due to underinvestment. To address this challenge, we introduce netload range cost curves (NRCCs), a novel approach for managing long-term DER growth uncertainty through T&D coordination, while preserving existing data-sharing and regulatory structures. NRCCs provide pairs of (i) peak substation netload guarantees and (ii) corresponding distribution upgrade options and costs, enabling their seamless integration into transmission planning workflows. To compute NRCCs efficiently, we develop a transmission-aware distribution network planning (TADNP), which is subsequently integrated to an iterative computation procedure. These NRCCs are then embedded into an NRCC-informed transmission planning model to enable resource-efficient coordination. We illustrate our proposed approach with a case study based on realistic distribution and transmission systems in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Our results indicate the possibility of dramatic savings in transmission investments by incorporating the proposed NRCC-integrated T&D coordination framework.

Li, Yujia↗

PanDA: Production and Distributed Analysis System

The Production and Distributed Analysis (PanDA) system is a data-driven workload management system engineered to operate at the LHC data processing scale. The PanDA system provides a solution for scientific experiments to fully leverage their distributed heterogeneous resources, showcasing scalability, usability, flexibility, and robustness. The system has successfully proven itself through nearly two decades of steady operation in the ATLAS experiment, addressing the intricate requirements such as diverse resources distributed worldwide at about 200 sites, thousands of scientists analyzing the data remotely, the volume of processed data beyond the exabyte scale, dozens of scientific applications to support, and data processing over several billion hours of computing usage per year. PanDA’s flexibility and scalability make it suitable for the High Energy Physics community and wider science domains at the Exascale. Beyond High Energy Physics, PanDA’s relevance extends to other big data sciences, as evidenced by its adoption in the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the sPHENIX experiment. As the significance of advanced workflows continues to grow, PanDA has transformed into a comprehensive ecosystem, effectively tackling challenges associated with emerging workflows and evolving computing technologies. The paper discusses PanDA’s prominent role in the scientific landscape, detailing its architecture, functionality, deployment strategies, project management approaches, results, and evolution into an ecosystem.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

ModuleOT: A Hardware Security Module for Operational Technology: Preprint

With increasing penetration levels of distributed energy resources (DERs) on the distribution grid, as well as new technological advancements in the cyber space, new cyberattack vectors are being introduced, and the available attack surface is constantly increasing. Despite this increasing risk, the standard IEEE 1547-2018 does not yet recommend cybersecurity measures for DERs. To address this and to better protect data on the distribution grid - from the standpoints information security as well as operational security - ModuleOT has been developed. The module aims to significantly reduce cyberattack vectors by improving data privacy for user applications. This is accomplished by performing the core functions of encryption, authentication, authorization, certificate management, and user access control. The module integrates a custom security application with hardware cryptographic acceleration. The application secures all communications using Transmission Control Protocol over Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). These include the three most commonly used communications protocols for power systems information exchange: Modbus, Distributed Network Protocol 3 (DNP3), and Smart Energy Profile 2.0 (SEP2.0). These three protocols are also supported by IEEE 1547-2018 for all DER devices. This paper tests the data encryption/decryption feature on a physical networking test bed with emulated Modbus devices reporting grid data and presents the results.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Cybersecurity for Distributed Wind: What Integrators Need to Know

Few resources exist to address a growing need to secure distributed wind systems. Idaho National Laboratory recently published the Cybersecurity Guide for Distributed Wind, a richly detailed resource outlining a distributed wind system's possible architecture, relevant standards, risk management strategies, and key recommendations for stakeholders. This document highlights key actionable insights from the Guide that integrators can use to execute an effective cybersecurity strategy.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Cybersecurity for Distributed Wind: What Manufacturers Need to Know

Few resources exist to address a growing need to secure distributed wind systems. Idaho National Laboratory recently published the Cybersecurity Guide for Distributed Wind, a richly detailed resource outlining a distributed wind system's possible architecture, relevant standards, risk management strategies, and key recommendations for stakeholders. This document highlights key actionable insights from the Guide that manufacturers can use to execute an effective cybersecurity strategy.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Cybersecurity for Distributed Wind: What Operators Need to Know

Few resources exist to address a growing need to secure distributed wind systems. Idaho National Laboratory recently published the Cybersecurity Guide for Distributed Wind, a richly detailed resource outlining a distributed wind system's possible architecture, relevant standards, risk management strategies, and key recommendations for stakeholders. This document highlights key actionable insights from the Guide that operators can use to execute an effective cybersecurity strategy.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Controlling distributed energy resources via deep reinforcement learning for load flexibility and energy efficiency

Behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs), including building solar photovoltaic (PV) technology and electric battery storage, are increasingly being considered as solutions to support carbon reduction goals and increase grid reliability and resiliency. However, dynamic control of these resources in concert with traditional building loads, to effect efficiency and demand flexibility, is not yet commonplace in commercial control products. Traditional rule-based control algorithms do not offer integrated closed-loop control to optimize across systems, and most often, PV and battery systems are operated for energy arbitrage and demand charge management, and not for the provision of grid services. More advanced control approaches, such as MPC control have not been widely adopted in industry because they require significant expertise to develop and deploy. Recent advances in deep reinforcement learning (DRL) offer a promising option to optimize the operation of DER systems and building loads with reduced setup effort. However, there are limited studies that evaluate the efficacy of these methods to control multiple building subsystems simultaneously. Additionally, most of the research has been conducted in simulated environments as opposed to real buildings. This paper proposes a DRL approach that uses a deep deterministic policy gradient algorithm for integrated control of HVAC and electric battery storage systems in the presence of on-site PV generation. The DRL algorithm, trained on synthetic data, was deployed in a physical test building and evaluated against a baseline that uses the current best-in-class rule-based control strategies. Performance in delivering energy efficiency, load shift, and load shed was tested using price-based signals. The results showed that the DRL-based controller can produce cost savings of up to 39.6% as compared to the baseline controller, while maintaining similar thermal comfort in the building. The project team has also integrated the simulation components developed during this work as an OpenAIGym environment and made it publicly available so that prospective DRL researchers can leverage this environment to evaluate alternate DRL algorithms.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Rucio beyond ATLAS: experiences from Belle II, CMS, DUNE, EISCAT3D, LIGO/VIRGO, SKA, XENON

For many scientific projects, data management is an increasingly complicated challenge. The number of data-intensive instruments generating unprecedented volumes of data is growing and their accompanying workflows are becoming more complex. Their storage and computing resources are heterogeneous and are distributed at numerous geographical locations belonging to different administrative domains and organisations. These locations do not necessarily coincide with the places where data is produced nor where data is stored, analysed by researchers, or archived for safe long-term storage. To fulfil these needs, the data management system Rucio has been developed to allow the high-energy physics experiment ATLAS at LHC to manage its large volumes of data in an efficient and scalable way. But ATLAS is not alone, and several diverse scientific projects have started evaluating, adopting, and adapting the Rucio system for their own needs. As the Rucio community has grown, many improvements have been introduced, customisations have been added, and many bugs have been fixed. Additionally, new dataflows have been investigated and operational experiences have been documented. In this article we collect and compare the common successes, pitfalls, and oddities that arose in the evaluation efforts of multiple diverse experiments, and compare them with the ATLAS experience. This includes the high-energy physics experiments Belle II and CMS, the neutrino experiment DUNE, the scattering radar experiment EISCAT3D, the gravitational wave observatories LIGO and VIRGO, the SKA radio telescope, and the dark matter search experiment XENON.

Lassnig, Mario↗

Development of a DC Distribution Testbed for High-Power EV Charging

This paper explores the design and implementation of a power hardware-in-the-loop (P-HIL) setup for DC distribution infrastructure integrated with high-power charging (HPC) of electric vehicles (EVs), DC loads, and sources. The utilization of DC distribution holds significant potential for enhancing the operation of a HPC station architecture. However, there are challenges establishing a DC charging hub including interoperability, commoditization, distributed energy resource integration, stability, DC protection, and lack of common system level controllers. To address these challenges, a testing setup is required that accommodates commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products to evaluate different use cases at rated power and voltage levels. The developed P-HIL setup features a dedicated DC charging hub, DC-coupled chargers, DC loads/sources, DC protection, and a communication architecture. The integrated P-HIL system provides a versatile testing environment to address technology and interoperability gaps and implements a smart energy management system (SEMS). This platform enables comprehensive and robust testing of COTS devices, charger prototypes, SEMS controllers and protection schemes, which together will accelerate transition to EVs at scale. The setup is tested for various use-cases at full-scale, integrating 950 V DC bus voltage, 660 kW grid-tied inverter, 150 kW COTS charger, and 100 kW energy storage system within an open-source SEMS platform.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,POWER TRANSMISSION AND↗

Flexible Pilot Jobs Framework for Distributed High Throughput Computing

Experimental particle physics has been at the forefront of analyzing the world’s largest datasets for decades. The high-energy physics (HEP) community was among the first to develop suitable software and computing tools for this purpose. GlideinWMS is a Glidein-based workload management system whose purpose is to provide experiments like CMS at CERN, DUNE at Fermilab, and others, a way to access and efficiently use vast amounts of computing resources. This system wants to provide a simple way to submit jobs to a set of computing resources, that will be provided to users behind the scenes. Glideins are the pilot jobs executed on the worker nodes at the grid sites, performing operations such as hardware detection, environment setup, and error handling. After all these operations, they will launch the actual user job. Many grid sites are supported, such as shared clusters, Google CE, and AWS. My internship aimed to design and code a flexible pilot jobs framework that will replace the one used by GlideinWMS, developing a modular and flexible skeleton of the Glidein and adding further functionalities. My project also focused on the application of machine learning techniques as support to this management system.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Pufferscale: Rescaling HPC Data Services for High Energy Physics Applications

User-space HPC data services are emerging as an appealing alternative to traditional parallel file systems, because of their ability to be tailored to application needs while eliminating unnecessary overheads incurred by POSIX compliance. The High Energy Physics (HEP) community is progressively turning towards such services to enable high-throughput accesses under heavy concurrency to billions of event data produced by instruments and consumed by subsequent analysis workflows. Such services would benefit from the possibility to be rescaled up and down to adapt to changing workloads, as experimental campaigns progress, in order to optimize resource usage. This paper formalizes rescaling a distributed storage system as a multi objective optimization problem considering three criteria: load balance, data balance, and duration of the rescaling operation. We propose a heuristic for rapidly finding a good approximate solution, while allowing users to weight the criteria as needed. The heuristic is evaluated with Pufferscale, a new rescaling manager for microservice-based distributed storage systems. To validate our approach in a real-world ecosystem, we showcase the use of Pufferscale as a means to enable storage malleability in the HEPnOS storage system for HEP applications.

Distributed Storage System↗

EVSE Cybersecurity and Resilience

Consequence-driven Cybersecurity Analysis for Extreme Fast Charging Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Electric vehicle (EV) development and associated charging infrastructure are expected to advance rapidly. Thirty percent of all global vehicle sales may be EVs and hybrid EVs by 2025, and they will rely on increasingly sophisticated strategies for grid integration. Next-generation EV charging infrastructure is expected to include interconnected renewable resources, such as photovoltaic (PV) arrays and battery storage systems, along with grid-edge devices. Although distributed energy resources (DERs) are useful in several ways, such as peak shaving at high demand times and backup supply for added resilience, the integration of vehicle charging and DERs could create more avenues for cyberattack. Physical and/or remote access to EV charging station components, including charge ports, power electronics, controllers, and local generation (e.g., PV and energy storage) could be paths to cause power fluctuations, leading to altered operations at the charging station, escalated privileges to administrative systems, exfiltration of financial information (including personally identifiable information), and reduced grid stability. One compromised EV supply equipment component can open the door to a variety of exploitable vulnerabilities. Cloud computing and mobile application control have the potential to expand the threat surface to non-repudiation and firmware integrity challenges. Vendor clouds have access to hundreds of chargers, and if compromised, can scale the attack surface exponentially. The high power and voltage levels of xFC infrastructure (e.g., 400 kW at 1000- V DC) increase the hazards and ability to impact the grid and vehicles more than lower-power charging systems. Legacy communications systems and protocols could also put EV infrastructure at risk of cyberattacks requiring a robust patch management process. Communications networks link EVs and chargers to several stakeholders - including charging station operators, grid operators, vendors/manufacturers, and aggregators - who have both physical and network access to share information for control, monitoring, and analytics. Information in these networks that is vulnerable to compromise includes the state of charge, charging duration, payment information, electricity price, and load control. Analyzing and prioritizing these interconnections risks could help address cybersecurity related to data leakage and manipulation.

charging↗