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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 505 records · Page 28
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DOE OSTI2024

Anomaly Detection and Mitigation for Dynamic Frequency Regulation in Hydropower-Battery Systems

Hydropower operators and energy storage providers are increasingly interested in participating in frequency regulation services, driven by the incentives offered by independent system operators, such as the PJM Interconnection. This transition, however, unfolds against the backdrop of a modernizing and rapidly digitizing power grid, exposing the integrated legacy infrastructure to a multitude of cybersecurity threats. This work presents an approach for developing an anomaly detection and mitigation system to address cybersecurity challenges during the participation of a hydropower-integrated battery energy storage system (BESS) in a frequency regulation market. The applied anomaly detector utilizes machine learning algorithms to provide detailed classification of cyber-physical events. Later, the applied mitigation system triggers predefined corrective actions to minimize the impact of data integrity attacks on the regulation market and system stability. We evaluated the proposed approach on a hydropower-integrated BESS topology, specifically analyzing the slow regulation signal (Reg A) coming from the PJM market. Our simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach performs well in detecting data integrity attacks within the allocated time frame and also minimizes the system's transient instability during the participation of hydropower and BESS in the regulation market.

battery energy storage system↗
DOE OSTI2023

The Energy Transition: Advanced Nuclear Needed but Address Climate Vulnerabilities Now

The term “Energy Transition” is an attempt to capture an elaborate set of activities related to the modernization and decarbonization of energy grids. Performed concurrently and often in an ad hoc manner across local, state, regional and national boundaries, it is bringing chaos to what should arguably be one of the most conservatively managed of all critical infrastructure sectors. What’s more, with climate change producing an increasing tempo of extreme events, confidence in the intended resilient and redundant structure of the electric grids is likely to ebb. Even without these climate induced stressors, the nation’s electric grid was built for an earlier century. In addition to a drive towards greater efficiency via digitization and a continuing price decline in distributed energy resources (DERs), one could argue that climate change concerns are the primary driver of the energy transition. Non-CO2 emitting generation sources like wind and solar have become an important part of the overall generation fleet, albeit ones that cannot be counted upon to provide dispatchable power. Current projections indicate deployment of even larger percentages of DERs in coming years. Until far better storage capabilities arrive, the variability of wind and solar, inconsistent performance of traditional thermal generation plants, and energy delivery failures associated with natural gas pipelines will reinforce mounting reliability concerns. This pertains to both electric transmission and distribution. The recent shuttering of nuclear power plants in Germany, Japan, the US and elsewhere are also putting more downward pressure on dispatchable generation. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has roiled energy markets worldwide and forced some countries to return to coal as a primary fuel. In view circumstances such as these, it is essential that significant changes be made to policies and planning criteria, and to the standards and code on which they are based. Given the accelerating pace of extreme weather events, this needs to occur as soon as possible.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Quantum computing in power systems

Electric power systems provide the backbone of modern industrial societies. Enabling scalable grid analytics is the keystone to successfully operating large transmission and distribution systems. However, today's power systems are suffering from ever-increasing computational burdens in sustaining the expanding communities and deep integration of renewable energy resources, as well as managing huge volumes of data accordingly. These unprecedented challenges call for transformative analytics to support the resilient operations of power systems. Recently, the explosive growth of quantum computing techniques has ignited new hopes of revolutionizing power system computations. Quantum computing harnesses quantum mechanisms to solve traditionally intractable computational problems, which may lead to ultra-scalable and efficient power grid analytics. This paper reviews the newly emerging application of quantum computing techniques in power systems. We present a comprehensive overview of existing quantum-engineered power analytics from different operation perspectives, including static analysis, transient analysis, stochastic analysis, optimization, stability, and control. We thoroughly discuss the related quantum algorithms, their benefits and limitations, hardware implementations, and recommended practices. We also review the quantum networking techniques to ensure secure communication of power systems in the quantum era. Finally, we discuss challenges and future research directions. This paper will hopefully stimulate increasing attention to the development of quantum-engineered smart grids.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Xarray Climate Data Analysis Tools

xCDAT is an extension of xarray for climate data analysis on structured grids. It serves as a modern successor to the Community Data Analysis Tools (CDAT) library. Xarray is an "open source project and Python package that introduces labels in the form of dimensions, coordinates, and attributes on top of raw NumPy-like arrays, which allows for more intuitive, more concise, and less error-prone user experience. Xarray includes a large and growing library of domain-agnostic functions for advanced analytics and visualization with these data structures" (source: https://xarray.dev/). The goal of xCDAT is to provide generalizable features and utilities for simple and robust analysis of climate data. xCDAT's design philosophy is focused on reducing the overhead required to accomplish certain tasks in xarray. Some key xCDAT features are inspired by or ported from the core CDAT library, while others leverage powerful libraries in the xarray ecosystem (e.g., xESMF and cf_xarray) to deliver robust APIs.

Vo, Tom↗
DOE OSTI2012

2012 Annual Report [WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION]

Fiscal Year 2012 brought some tumultuous and uncertain times to Western. The utility industry and technology continued to evolve, and the demand for constant flow of power and transmission system reliability continued to increase. Western kept pace by continuing to deliver reliable, cost-based hydropower while reviewing and updating business practices that took into account how the energy industry is evolving. During this time of exponential change, Western tackled many challenges, including: Reviewing the Transmission Infrastructure Program processes and procedures; Responding to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu’s memorandum to create a modern, efficient and reliable transmission grid; Weathering record-breaking natural disasters in our service territory; Completing our role in TIP’s flagship project—the Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. transmission line; Incorporating new, far-reaching regulations and industry trends.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Machine Learning in Power System Operations: Training Data

Reliability and stability of the electric grid today has depended upon operations of the grid which include the protective relay. Today, the electricity sector faces new challenges with the shift of generation resource characteristics away from the traditional “big iron” generation to inverter-based resources (IBR) which shift the physics and assumption used in grid operation and protection. These changing conditions represent new challenges for protective relays (identification of faults) and increased challenges for protection engineers (correct settings and configuration, reduction of mis-operations), both issues recognized in research and industry. Finding new approaches to reduce mis-operations in relaying and new approaches to fault identification is critical to grid operations. Using today’s modern technology of embedded systems, edge computing, machine learning (ML), and communications we can help address challenges and augment and improve on existing power system operations methodologies.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Anomaly Detection and Mitigation for Dynamic Frequency Regulation in Hydropower-Battery Systems: Preprint

Hydropower operators and energy storage providers are increasingly interested in participating in frequency regulation services, driven by the incentives offered by independent system operators, such as the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM), in a competitive electricity market. This transition, however, unfolds against the backdrop of a modernizing and rapidly digitizing power grid, exposing the integrated legacy infrastructure and vulnerable communication networks to a multitude of cybersecurity threats. These evolving threats not only endanger grid operations but also have the potential to trigger cascading disruptions across the broader grid network and influence regulation markets. This work presents an approach for developing an anomaly detection and mitigation system to address cybersecurity challenges during the participation of a hydropower-integrated battery energy storage system (BESS) in a frequency regulation market. The applied anomaly detector utilizes machine learning algorithms to provide detailed classification of cyber-physical events and provide a comprehensive situation awareness to grid operators. Later, the applied mitigation system triggers predefined corrective actions to minimize the impact of data integrity attacks on the regulation market and system stability. We evaluated the proposed approach on a fully active BESS topology using the slow regulation signal (Reg A) coming from the PJM market. Our simulation results reveal that the proposed approach performs well in detecting data integrity attacks within the allocated time frame and also minimizes the system's instability and economic loss during the participation of hydropower and BESS in the regulation market.

battery energy storage system↗
DOE OSTI2016

A Game-Theoretic Approach to Modeling Attacks and Defenses of Smart Grids at Three Levels

As optimization, user capabilities, and data-taking abilities are incorporated into next-generation power grids, or smart grids, they face cyber threats. The traditional electrical grid could only be damaged by physical attacks; however thesmart grid can suffer remote/cyber attacks, which have not been studied extensively in the literature. The electrical grid forms the backbone of the modern society and its security has significant implications in military settings. This paper applies game theory to model three-levels (power plants, transmission, and distribution networks) of defenses and attacks in smart grid network security. We characterize both the attacker and the defender (who interact at three network levels: distribution, transmission, and power plants) best responses and equilibrium strategies. We find that the defender's best response is not only a function of direct attacks but also of the spread from connected networks. Sensitivity analyses of the equilibrium strategies show that when success probability of an attack against power plantsreaches a threshold, the defender increases defending efforts for power plants. In contrast, the attack eort at all levels is not affected by this probability. This paper provides some novel insights to modeling and analyzing the emerging threats to the growing smart grid networks.

Rao, Nageswara S.↗
DOE OSTI2015

OPNET/Simulink Based Testbed for Disturbance Detection in the Smart Grid

The important backbone of the smart grid is the cyber/information infrastructure, which is primarily used to communicate with different grid components. A smart grid is a complex cyber physical system containing a numerous and variety number of sources, devices, controllers and loads. Therefore, the smart grid is vulnerable to grid related disturbances. For such dynamic system, disturbance and intrusion detection is a paramount issue. This paper presents a Simulink and Opnet based co-simulated platform to carry out a cyber-intrusion in cyber network for modern power systems and the smart grid. The IEEE 30 bus power system model is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the simulated testbed. The experiments were performed by disturbing the circuit breakers reclosing time through a cyber-attack. Different disturbance situations in the considered test system are considered and the results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed co-simulated scheme.

Cyber Attacks↗
DOE OSTI2017

Unleashing the Power of Wide-Area Data Analytics for Enhanced Grid Visibility

We report that the operation of modern electric transmission systems relies increasingly on the use of advanced sensing and synchronized-measurement technologies. These technologies collect and collate a wide variety of data from disperse locations to monitor the health of network, obtain fast and accurate diagnosis of systemic changes, and detect signs of anomalies and instabilities at an early stage. In view of the far-reaching blackout risk from potential damages to critical transmission grid assets (due to severe disturbances, physical attacks, and extreme weather events), stealthy activities that compromise the operation of wide-area sensing, communication, and control systems could cripple the entire cyber-physical smart-grid infrastructure. To this end, achieving robust event identification, ensuring bulk system observability, and developing actionable intelligence (by fostering data-driven decision making under imminent threat of complex, multifaceted attacks and disruptions) remain key challenges for sustaining a resilient power grid operation.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Advanced Computing is at the Forefront of a New “Moonshot” Revolutionizing the North American Power Grid

In the 50+ years since the first humans landed on the moon, computing has grown at breakneck speed. We are faced with another challenge that is just as daunting, and just as important to overcome-modernizing the North American electric power grid-and high-performance computing (HPC) systems with specialized software will be an important element in rising to this challenge. We describe at a high level how software developed in the ExaSGD project addresses this "moonshot" goal by utilizing exascale computing and a novel high performance solver software stack to support the mission of decarbonizing power grid operations in an environment of uncertain weather and climate. To reach the exascale benchmark the team has made a number of first-of-their-kind innovations, including novel method for stochastic optimization, fine grained parallel methods for modeling power systems, and GPU resident sparse numerical linear solvers.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2011

A Framework for Testing Automated Detection, Diagnosis, and Remediation Systems on the Smart Grid

America's electrical grid is currently undergoing a multi-billion dollar modernization effort aimed at producing a highly reliable critical national infrastructure for power - a Smart Grid. While the goals for the Smart Grid include upgrades to accommodate large quantities of clean, but transient, renewable energy and upgrades to provide customers with real-time pricing information, perhaps the most important objective is to create an electrical grid with a greatly increased robustness.

autonomous detection, diagnosis, and remediation (↗
DOE OSTI2024

GO Competition Challenge 1 Benchmark Approach and Validation Support

At the outset ARPA-e’s grid optimization competition sought to test a hypothesis that modern nonlinear optimization methods had reached a level of performance and reliability necessary to optimize energy grids using nonlinear power flow equations. The results demonstrated by this project and the other participants in the grid optimization competition have demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt that this hypothesis is true. This result suggest that the mathematical optimization technology now exists to produce a revolution in power grid optimization software, which would improve the efficiency of energy grid operations to the broad benefit of society.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2017

Current Capabilities at SNL for the Integration of Small Modular Reactors onto Smart Microgrids Using Sandia's Smart Microgrid Technology High Performance Computing and Advanced Manufacturing.

Smart grids are a crucial component for enabling the nation’s future energy needs, as part of a modernization effort led by the Department of Energy. Smart grids and smart microgrids are being considered in niche applications, and as part of a comprehensive energy strategy to help manage the nation’s growing energy demands, for critical infrastructures, military installations, small rural communities, and large populations with limited water supplies. As part of a far-reaching strategic initiative, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) presents herein a unique, three-pronged approach to integrate small modular reactors (SMRs) into microgrids, with the goal of providing economically-competitive, reliable, and secure energy to meet the nation’s needs. SNL’s triad methodology involves an innovative blend of smart microgrid technology, high performance computing (HPC), and advanced manufacturing (AM). In this report, Sandia’s current capabilities in those areas are summarized, as well as paths forward that will enable DOE to achieve its energy goals. In the area of smart grid/microgrid technology, Sandia’s current computational capabilities can model the entire grid, including temporal aspects and cyber security issues. Our tools include system development, integration, testing and evaluation, monitoring, and sustainment.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2018

An Open-Source Tool for Automated Power Grid Stress Level Prediction at Balancing Authorities

The behavior of modern power systems becomes more stochastic and dynamic, due to the increased penetration of variable generation, demand response, new power market structure, extreme weather conditions, contingencies, and unexpected events. It is critically important to predict potential system operational issues so that grid planners and operators can take preventive actions to mitigate the impact, e.g., lack of operational reserves. In this paper, an innovative software tool is presented to assist power grid operators in a balancing authority (BA) to predict the grid stress level over the next operating day. It periodically collects necessary information from public domain such as weather forecasts, electricity demand, and automatically estimates the stress levels on a daily basis. Advanced Neural Network and regression tree algorithms are developed as the prediction engines to achieve this goal. The tool has been tested on a few key balancing authorities that successfully predicates the growing system peak load and increased stress levels under extreme heat waves in the United States of America.

Berscheid, Alan P.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Resource Analysis of NP Kunta Solar Park Site (White Paper)

India has set a target of 175 GW of renewable energy (RE) capacity by 2022 and 450 GW by 2030. Flexibility is key for efficient integration of renewables. The modern-day RE plants are grid-friendly and can also provide this flexibility. A pilot to demonstrate this flexibility by implementing automatic generation control (AGC) at a solar plant is being done by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under USAID’s Greening the Grid (GTG) Program and Renewable Integration & Sustainable Energy (RISE) initiative. This paper presents the resource variability analysis of the 250-MW NP Kunta solar plant site where the AGC pilot project is being implemented. This paper also demonstrates the use of publicly available resource quality data, which can be utilized by various stakeholders to better understand the variability of any existing or potential RE site in India and possibly increase confidence in decisions or help to understand the impacts that can be expected.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Using Energy Storage to Support Puerto Rico's Transmission System

As part of the DOE's multi-laboratory effort to provide analysis and tools to support reconstruction and modernization of the Puerto Rico electric grid, Sandia National Laboratory was tasked with making recommendations for how to use energy storage to support the transmission system. Puerto Rico's electric grid is outdated and still recovering from the 2017 hurricane season, and targeted improvements are needed to restore reliability and to provide resilience for future extreme events. This report examined the most critical near-term issues with the transmission system: frequency regulation and response, and analyzed the impacts of incorporating energy storage systems of varying sizes with the goal of immediately minimizing load shedding while laying the foundation for future renewable energy integration. The analysis concluded that 240 MW/60 MWh of energy storage would stabilize system frequency sufficiently to avoid loss of load for rapid load changes or generation outages up to and including loss of the largest generation unit on the island.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗