Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Return on Investment”

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 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Comparative Analysis of Natural Gas Cogeneration Incentives on Electricity Production in Latin America

An analysis to assess the influence of country-dependent variables and incentives on the feasibility of natural gas cogeneration projects in Latin America is presented in this work. The analysis is performed using a hypothetical industrial plant, where the cogeneration solution consists in the recovery of waste heat from the power generation for steam production. The feasibility is evaluated by calculating the Return of Investment (ROI) and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of the project. Eight Latin American countries are studied considering their specific natural gas markets, regulation, and macroeconomic variables. Two scenarios, electricity production for self-consumption and electricity production with power surplus sale, are independently analyzed considering the effects of available incentives. In the countries where the project is feasible, the application of incentives leads to a significant reduction in the ROI and, consequently, to an increment in the IRR. The effect of the interest rate and environmental impact were also analyzed. In general terms, along the region, the regulation for cogeneration is incipient while incentives are very standard and similar respect to lowering of import, Value-Added Tax (VAT), and income taxes, which seems to be designed purely to promote capital investment. Following the results from this study, it is of paramount importance to create new policy instruments in the future to advance the regulatory framework for cogeneration in Latin America.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS2006

Marshall Space Flight Center Propulsion Systems Department (PSD) KM Initiative

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center s Propulsion Systems Department (PSD) is four months into a fifteen month Knowledge Management (KM) initiative to support enhanced engineering decision making and analyses, faster resolution of anomalies (near-term) and effective, efficient knowledge infused engineering processes, reduced knowledge attrition, and reduced anomaly occurrences (long-term). The near-term objective of this initiative is developing a KM Pilot project, within the context of a 3-5 year KM strategy, to introduce and evaluate the use of KM within PSD. An internal NASA/MSFC PSD KM team was established early in project formulation to maintain a practitioner, user-centric focus throughout the conceptual development, planning and deployment of KM technologies and capabilities with in the PSD. The PSD internal team is supported by the University of Alabama's Aging Infrastructure Systems Center Of Excellence (AISCE), Intergraph Corporation, and The Knowledge Institute. The principle product of the initial four month effort has been strategic planning of PSD KM implementation by first determining the "as is" state of KM capabilities and developing, planning and documenting the roadmap to achieve the desired "to be" state. Activities undertaken to support the planning phase have included data gathering; cultural surveys, group work-sessions, interviews, documentation review, and independent research. Assessments and analyses have been performed including industry benchmarking, related local and Agency initiatives, specific tools and techniques used and strategies for leveraging existing resources, people and technology to achieve common KM goals. Key findings captured in the PSD KM Strategic Plan include the system vision, purpose, stakeholders, prioritized strategic objectives mapped to the top ten practitioner needs and analysis of current resource usage. Opportunities identified from research, analyses, cultural/KM surveys and practitioner interviews include: executive and senior management sponsorship, KM awareness, promotion and training, cultural change management, process improvement, leveraging existing resources and new innovative technologies to align with other NASA KM initiatives (convergence: the big picture). To enable results based incremental implementation and future growth of the KM initiative, key performance measures have been identified including stakeholder value, system utility, learning and growth (knowledge capture, sharing, reduced anomaly recurrence), cultural change, process improvement and return-on-investment. The next steps for the initial implementation spiral (focused on SSME Turbomachinery) have been identified, largely based on the organization and compilation of summary level engineering process models, data capture matrices, functional models and conceptual-level systems architecture. Key elements include detailed KM requirements definition, KM technology architecture assessment, evaluation and selection, deployable KM Pilot design, development, implementation and evaluation, and justifying full implementation (estimated Return-on-Investment). Features identified for the notional system architecture include the knowledge presentation layer (and its components), knowledge network layer (and its components), knowledge storage layer (and its components), User Interface and capabilities. This paper provides a snapshot of the progress to date, the near term planning for deploying the KM pilot project and a forward look at results based growth of KM capabilities with-in the MSFC PSD.

Caraccioli, Paul↗
NASA NTRS2006

Marshall Space Flight Center Propulsion Systems Department (PSD) Knowledge Management (KM) Initiative

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's Propulsion Systems Department (PSD) is four months into a fifteen month Knowledge Management (KM) initiative to support enhanced engineering decision making and analyses, faster resolution of anomalies (near-term) and effective, efficient knowledge infused engineering processes, reduced knowledge attrition, and reduced anomaly occurrences (long-term). The near-term objective of this initiative is developing a KM Pilot project, within the context of a 3-5 year KM strategy, to introduce and evaluate the use of KM within PSD. An internal NASA/MSFC PSD KM team was established early in project formulation to maintain a practitioner, user-centric focus throughout the conceptual development, planning and deployment of KM technologies and capabilities within the PSD. The PSD internal team is supported by the University of Alabama's Aging Infrastructure Systems Center of Excellence (AISCE), lntergraph Corporation, and The Knowledge Institute. The principle product of the initial four month effort has been strategic planning of PSD KNI implementation by first determining the "as is" state of KM capabilities and developing, planning and documenting the roadmap to achieve the desired "to be" state. Activities undertaken to suppo~th e planning phase have included data gathering; cultural surveys, group work-sessions, interviews, documentation review, and independent research. Assessments and analyses have beon pedormed including industry benchmarking, related local and Agency initiatives, specific tools and techniques used and strategies for leveraging existing resources, people and technology to achieve common KM goals. Key findings captured in the PSD KM Strategic Plan include the system vision, purpose, stakeholders, prioritized strategic objectives mapped to the top ten practitioner needs and analysis of current resource usage. Opportunities identified from research, analyses, cultural1KM surveys and practitioner interviews include: executive and senior management sponsorship, KM awareness, promotion and training, cultural change management, process improvement, leveraging existing resources and new innovative technologies to align with other NASA KM initiatives (convergence: the big picture). To enable results based incremental implementation and future growth of the KM initiative, key performance measures have been identified including stakeholder value, system utility, learning and growth (knowledge capture, sharing, reduced anomaly recurrence), cultural change, process improvement and return-on-investment. The next steps for the initial implementation spiral (focused on SSME Turbomachinery) have been identified, largely based on the organization and compilation of summary level engineering process models, data capture matrices, functional models and conceptual-level svstems architecture. Key elements include detailed KM requirements definition, KM technology architecture assessment, - evaluation and selection, deployable KM Pilot design, development, implementation and evaluation, and justifying full implementation (estimated Return-on-Investment). Features identified for the notional system architecture include the knowledge presentation layer (and its components), knowledge network layer (and its components), knowledge storage layer (and its components), User Interface and capabilities. This paper provides a snapshot of the progress to date, the near term planning for deploying the KM pilot project and a forward look at results based growth of KM capabilities with-in the MSFC PSD.

Caraccioli, Paul↗
DOE OSTI2023

Urban Combined Heat and Power with Integrated Renewables and Energy Storage

This project demonstrated how incorporating a diverse generation and storage portfolio allows an urban district energy system to improve its efficiency by at least 50% and increase its backup power by at least 40% with a return on investment of at least ten years. The improvement was evaluated against the baseline operations for two urban district energy systems (DESs): a synthetic DES and a George Washington University DES. The DES techno-economic framework we developed yields reliability, resilience, and vulnerability indices for urban DESs (including generation and storage) with designation of which technologies improve the security and resiliency metrics by at least 20% compared to the status quo. The indices are benchmarked against baseline scenarios, and cost projections (capital cost and return on investment) to achieve the 20% improvement are reported. The energy management system we developed to conduct these analyses was incorporated into a user-friendly interface that can be used for decision-making by a user with no technical or programming background.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2009

Spreadsheets for Analyzing and Optimizing Space Missions

XCALIBR (XML Capability Analysis LIBRary) is a set of Extensible Markup Language (XML) database and spreadsheet- based analysis software tools designed to assist in technology-return-on-investment analysis and optimization of technology portfolios pertaining to outer-space missions. XCALIBR is also being examined for use in planning, tracking, and documentation of projects. An XCALIBR database contains information on mission requirements and technological capabilities, which are related by use of an XML taxonomy. XCALIBR incorporates a standardized interface for exporting data and analysis templates to an Excel spreadsheet. Unique features of XCALIBR include the following: It is inherently hierarchical by virtue of its XML basis. The XML taxonomy codifies a comprehensive data structure and data dictionary that includes performance metrics for spacecraft, sensors, and spacecraft systems other than sensors. The taxonomy contains >700 nodes representing all levels, from system through subsystem to individual parts. All entries are searchable and machine readable. There is an intuitive Web-based user interface. The software automatically matches technologies to mission requirements. The software automatically generates, and makes the required entries in, an Excel return-on-investment analysis software tool. The results of an analysis are presented in both tabular and graphical displays.

Some, Raphael R.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Feasibility Analysis of Converter-Interfaced Combined Heat and Power System

As a promising new design concept, the converter-interfaced combined heat and power (CHP) system is coupled to the bulk grid through a rectifier and a grid-ready tied inverter. Compared to the traditional directly-coupled CHP system, it removes the requirement for oversizing the CHP generator, limits the short-circuit contribution of the generator and simplifies the grid integration process of CHP system. This paper evaluates the economic benefits of this concept by calculating the annualized Return-on-Investment (ROI) and comparing it to the directly-coupled system. The economic analysis includes timeseries simulations to compute energy transactions with the bulk grid as well as sizing the equipment to calculate the capital and operational costs. Obtained results indicate that in majority of user cases evaluated, the converter-interfaced CHP systems can provide better ROI than directly-coupled systems. Given the additional technical benefits provided by inverter-based distributed energy resources (DERs), the proposed concept is proved to be technically viable and economically feasible.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Comparative Life Cycle Analysis of Scalable Single-Junction and Tandem Perovskite Solar Cell (PSC) Systems

Efficient, low-cost solar cells based upon perovskites have the potential to transform the US and global energy portfolio and improve energy security if they can be manufactured in an environmentally sustainable manner. However, previous life cycle analyses (LCA) of perovskite solar cells (PSC) used lab recipes to project the environmental impact of industrial PSC production – using materials and processes that may not be representative of industrial productions due to high material waste and complex synthesis – and such studies were limited to a few single-junction technologies. Thus, the goal of this project was threefold: a) to review the most promising for industrial production single-junction and tandem PSC technologies, b) to build life-cycle materials inventories that reflect scalable production of these technologies, and c) to conduct comprehensive life-cycle analysis of these technologies and compare their environmental impact with those of established commercial technologies. In response, this project identified challenges for fabrication transitioning from laboratory to sustainable industrial production, developed life-cycle inventory (LCI) data for scaling to industrial production four promising single-junction and three tandem PSC systems and produced life-cycle-investigations using, as metrics, a complete spectrum of energy, environmental and ecological impact indicators. Special focus was given to the use of lead, silver and indium in PSC. The project used the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology as standardized by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), ISO standards 14040 and 14044, and the International Energy Agency PVPS Task 12 LCA guidelines. LCA allows the calculation of a number of energy and environmental and impact categories, including energy cumulative energy demand (CED), global warming potential (GWP), human toxicity potential (HTP), eco-toxicity potential (ETP), abiotic resource depletion potential (ADP), acidification potential (AP), ozone depletion potential (ODP), photochemical oxidation potential (POP), eutrophication potential (EP). In addition to those, we calculated the Energy Pay-Back Time (EPBT) and the Energy Return On Investment (EROI). We provide LCA impacts for complete perovskite PV systems – including balance of system components – installed at three irradiation levels and considering reference and future potential module efficiencies. Finally, a sensitivity analysis on perovskite lifetime has been performed, considering 10, 20 and 30 years. Contribution analysis of the impacts of each material and layer of PSC shows, that the use of Pb in metalorganic PSC does not result in significant environmental impacts as the major contributions to environmental indicators arise from the use of Ag and encapsulation materials. Solution-based PSC manufacturing was found to be less impactful to the environment than vapor-based fabrication, and roll-to-roll (RtR) printing uses less energy and generates the lowest emissions. PSC produced with RtR manufacturing could reach the same Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) as that of crystalline-Si PV within 12 years of life, whereas the most energy demanding spray coating on rigid substrates, would require a 20-yr life to match the EROI of 30-yr lasting silicon PV. This work lays the foundation for sustainability investigations in a comparative context of large-scale production and deployment of PSC. The results of this project have the potential to have a significant impact on the future of PV manufacturing, by providing industry, policy-makers, and academia with insights necessary to choose which, if any, lead-based solar cell life cycles are environmentally sustainable.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

PV Evolution in the Light of Circular Economy

As photovoltaic (PV) deployments increase, the increasing material volume presents challenges throughout the supply chain and eventual end-of-life waste management. Quantifying the value of lifetime, reliability, repair, reuse, recycling, and other options to increase circularity can help identify and prioritize research and technical solutions required to integrate PV into the circular economy. In this work, we capture the evolution of PV module technology, such as improved reliability and increasing market share of glass/glass modules. We discuss material circularity, lifetime and reliability, and energy return on investment as quantitative metrics to define and evaluate circularity and sustainability.

bifacial↗
NASA NTRS1961

Spacecraft

In this twentieth century, we are privileged to witness the first steps toward realization of an age-old dream: the exploration of space. Already, in the first few years of the Space Age, man has been able to penetrate the layer of atmosphere which surrounds his planet and to venture briefly into space. Scores of man-made objects have been thrust into space, some of them to roam the solar system forever. Behind each space mission are years of patient research, thousands of man-hours of labor, and large sums of money. Because the sums involved are so enormous, the question is frequently asked, "Is it worth it?" Many people want to know what return this huge investment will bring to mankind. The return on the investment is knowledge. The accumulation of knowledge over the centuries has made possible our advanced way of life. As we unlock more and more of the secrets of the universe through space exploration, we add new volumes to the encyclopedia of man's knowledge. This will be applied to the benefit of mankind. For the practical-minded, there are concrete benefits to our way of life. Although we are still in the Stone Age of space exploration, a number of immediate applications of space technology are already apparent. For instance, imagine the benefits of an absolutely perfect system of predicting the weather. Or, going a step further, even changing the weather. And wouldn't it be fascinating to watch the next Olympic games, telecast from Tokyo, on your TV set? These are just a few of the practical benefits made possible by space technology.

Clark, John F.↗
DOE OSTI2021

PV Evolution in the Light of Circular Economy: Preprint

An ideal circular economy has no waste, end-of-life resources become new goods, and all production loops are closed. For the photovoltaic industry’s growing waste problem, quantifying the value of lifetime, reliability, repair, reuse, recycling and other options to increase circularity can help identify and prioritize research needs. In this work we capture the evolution of PV module technology, such as improved reliability and increasing market share of glass/glass modules. We then study the material and energy flows for PV production and use, and identify the circular processes and pathways yielding the most impact. We discuss material circularity and energy return on investment as quantitative metrics to define and evaluate circularity.

bifacial↗
DOE OSTI2024

Digitalization mapping and assessment process supporting ION strategic transformation activities

The existing fleet of commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs) are an important asset in the nation’s portfolio of electrical generating resources. Their continued safe and reliable operation are critical to providing a large source of carbon-free electricity to power the nation’s economy. The United States Department of Energy’s (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program develops the scientific bases, methods, and tools, for the continued safe and economical operation of the nation's commercial NPPs. The Plant Modernization Pathway within LWRS Program focuses on providing guidance to industry on the full-scale implementation of modernization solutions for NPPs that significantly reduce the technical and financial risks associated with modernization. This research is focused on helping the nuclear industry understand how to digitize and digitalize their NPPs so that they can design their modernization solutions to be scalable, sustainable, and integrated both laterally and horizontally within their organization. That is, this research creates a digital transformation in NPPs by reshaping cultural mindsets and by identifying business efficiencies. In partnership with industry, and using four previously established guiding principles for digitalization, this research supported NPP modernization through assessing readiness for digitalization as a means to achieve integrated operations for nuclear. Specifically, this research created an assessment to review an entire organization’s work processes to gather information about the digitalization health of the plant. The assessment tools were administered to plant employees, and the results were used to develop a digitalization plan. The survey assessment identified the optimal candidate processes that would most benefit from a digitalization initiative which were revealed through analytical frameworks. One analysis calculated mean digitalization health indicator scores for all endorsed activities which allowed the researchers to rank and color code the results for easy identification. Individual health indicator scores are also provided, should our industry partner wish to understand these findings according to their own organizational priorities, business considerations and desired end-state. The results were also analyzed from the perspective that organizations are comprised of different types of innovators (e.g., generators, optimizers, conceptualizers, and implementers), which differentially affects the organization’s ability to comprehend and adapt to change (i.e., opportunities to innovate). Understanding the relative composition of innovator types at an NPP allows them to gather insights into the strengths and weaknesses they have in innovating how work is performed. For the utility that partnered with this research team, the results showed that implementers make up the largest portion of respondents and conceptualizers the smallest portion. Knowing the proportion of innovator types gave this organization insights on how they can effectively implement their innovation solutions. Additionally, the results were analyzed from a technical, economic, and risk perspective to identify and quantify work reduction opportunities (WROs). Recognizing that not all cost-saving opportunities are the same, a Technical, Economic and Risk Assessment (TERA) was performed to evaluate WROs to identify areas of greatest potential and lowest risk. The key results from TERA included a digitalization opportunity score for each activity, and a calculation of potential cost savings. These two outputs formed the bases for calculating a priority index and rank for the activities/processes assessed. From the prioritization calculations, TERA can then help the utility 1) decide what digitalization priorities to invest money in implementing and then 2) calculates how much should be invested in the digitalization initiatives selected to achieve cost savings and/or an acceptable return on investment. Last, onsite interviews revealed several inefficiencies in the standard work processes that occur cross-departmentally that are due to the absence of digitized and digitalized processes. Examples of these include time spent scanning paper documents and then uploading the documents electronically, obtaining signatures, and searching for desired information. This represents a digital but not digitalized process. Over 15 opportunities to improve work processes were identified through this multi-method digitalization assessment. The various analytical assessments used (e.g., TERA, digitalization health indicator scores), as well as discussions with the utility partner, corroborated that all the opportunities identified had a strong potential to make work processes more efficient and to improve overall performance of the NPP.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2022

The economic impacts of carbon emission trading scheme on building retrofits: A case study with U.S. medium office buildings

As a popular emission reduction tool, the carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) can potentially add an economic incentive for building owners to retrofit buildings in addition to the cost savings in energy. However, the additional economic benefits of building retrofits brought by ETS has not been quantitively investigated yet. Here, in order to fill this gap, this study proposed a systematic economic evaluation method to investigate the economic impacts of ETS on building retrofits. The reduction of the payback period and the increase of the return on investment are adopted as evaluation metrics. Using medium office buildings as an example, this study predicted the economic impacts of ETS on building retrofits at four locations in the U.S., and three different carbon prices were investigated. The results show that carbon prices have significant economic impacts on building retrofits. With the relatively low forecasted time-variant carbon prices (around 10 USD per ton), the economic impacts of ETS on building retrofits are small. When carbon prices increase, the impacts of ETS would be up to 25% for 50 USD per ton (current prices in European Union) and 51% for 100 USD per ton. Furthermore, locations with more fossil energy have higher relative changes in the payback period and ROI but are more sensitive to carbon prices.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS2011

NASA Technology Area 07: Human Exploration Destination Systems Roadmap

This paper gives an overview of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Office of Chief Technologist (OCT) led Space Technology Roadmap definition efforts. This paper will given an executive summary of the technology area 07 (TA07) Human Exploration Destination Systems (HEDS). These are draft roadmaps being reviewed and updated by the National Research Council. Deep-space human exploration missions will require many game changing technologies to enable safe missions, become more independent, and enable intelligent autonomous operations and take advantage of the local resources to become self-sufficient thereby meeting the goal of sustained human presence in space. Taking advantage of in-situ resources enhances and enables revolutionary robotic and human missions beyond the traditional mission architectures and launch vehicle capabilities. Mobility systems will include in-space flying, surface roving, and Extra-vehicular Activity/Extravehicular Robotics (EVA/EVR) mobility. These push missions will take advantage of sustainability and supportability technologies that will allow mission independence to conduct human mission operations either on or near the Earth, in deep space, in the vicinity of Mars, or on the Martian surface while opening up commercialization opportunities in low Earth orbit (LEO) for research, industrial development, academia, and entertainment space industries. The Human Exploration Destination Systems (HEDS) Technology Area (TA) 7 Team has been chartered by the Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) to strategically roadmap technology investments that will enable sustained human exploration and support NASA s missions and goals for at least the next 25 years. HEDS technologies will enable a sustained human presence for exploring destinations such as remote sites on Earth and beyond including, but not limited to, LaGrange points, low Earth orbit (LEO), high Earth orbit (HEO), geosynchronous orbit (GEO), the Moon, near-Earth objects (NEOs), which > 95% are asteroidal bodies, Phobos, Deimos, Mars, and beyond. The HEDS technology roadmap will strategically guide NASA and other U.S. Government agency technology investments that will result in capabilities enabling human exploration missions to diverse destinations generating high returns on investments.

Kennedy, Kriss J.↗
DOE OSTI2020

Willow Biomass Crops Are a Carbon Negative or Low-Carbon Feedstock Depending on Prior Land Use and Transportation Distances to End Users

Few life cycle assessments (LCAs) on willow biomass production have investigated the effects of key geographically specific parameters. This study uses a spatial LCA model for willow biomass production to determine spatially explicit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy return on investment (EROI), including land use conversion from pasture and cropland or grassland. There were negative GHG emissions on 92% of the land identified as suitable for willow biomass production, indicating this system’s potential for climate change mitigation. For willow planted on cropland or pasture, life cycle GHG emissions ranged from −53.2 to −176.9 kg CO2eq Mg-1. When willow was grown on grassland the projected decrease in soil organic carbon resulted in a slightly positive GHG balance. Changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) associated with land use change, transportation distance, and willow yield had the greatest impacts on GHG emissions. Results from the uncertainty analysis exhibited large variations in GHG emissions between counties arising from differences in these parameters. The average EROI across the entire region was 19.2. Willow biomass can be a carbon negative or low-carbon energy source with a high EROI in regions with similar infrastructure, transportation distances, and growing conditions such as soil characteristics, land cover types, and climate.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
NASA NTRS1982

Integrated Application of Active Controls (IAAC) technology to an advanced subsonic transport project: Final ACT configuration evaluation

The Final ACT Configuration Evaluation Task of the Integrated Application of Active Controls (IAAC) technology project within the energy efficient transport program is summarized. The Final ACT Configuration, through application of Active Controls Technology (ACT) in combination with increased wing span, exhibits significant performance improvements over the conventional baseline configuration. At the design range for these configurations, 3590 km, the block fuel used is 10% less for the Final ACT Configuration, with significant reductions in fuel usage at all operational ranges. Results of this improved fuel usage and additional system and airframe costs and the complexity required to achieve it were analyzed to determine its economic effects. For a 926 km mission, the incremental return on investment is nearly 25% at 1980 fuel prices. For longer range missions or increased fuel prices, the return is greater. The technical risks encountered in the Final ACT Configuration design and the research and development effort required to reduce these risks to levels acceptable for commercial airplane design are identified.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2012

Nano-Satellite Secondary Spacecraft on Deep Space Missions

NanoSat technology has opened Earth orbit to extremely low-cost science missions through a common interface that provides greater launch accessibility. They have also been used on interplanetary missions, but these missions have used one-off components and architectures so that the return on investment has been limited. A natural question is the role that CubeSat-derived NanoSats could play to increase the science return of deep space missions. We do not consider single instrument nano-satellites as likely to complete entire Discovery-class missions alone,but believe that nano-satellites could augment larger missions to significantly increase science return. The key advantages offered by these mini-spacecrafts over previous planetary probes is the common availability of advanced subsystems that open the door to a large variety of science experiments, including new guidance, navigation and control capabilities. In this paper, multiple NanoSat science applications are investigated, primarily for high risk/high return science areas. We also address the significant challenges and questions that remain as obstacles to the use of nano-satellites in deep space missions. Finally, we provide some thoughts on a development roadmap toward interplanetary usage of NanoSpacecraft.

Klesh, Andrew T.↗
DOE OSTI2023

IRIS-HEP Strategic Plan for the Next Phase of Software Upgrades for HL-LHC Physics

The quest to understand the fundamental building blocks of nature and their interactions is one of the oldest and most ambitious of human scientific endeavors. CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) represents a huge step forward in this quest. The discovery of the Higgs boson, the observation of exceedingly rare decays of $B$ mesons, and stringent constraints on many viable theories of physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) demonstrate the great scientific value of the LHC physics program. The next phase of this global scientific project will be the High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) which will collect data starting circa 2029 and continue through the 2030s. The primary science goal is to search for physics beyond the SM and, should it be discovered, to study its implications. In the HL-LHC era, the ATLAS and CMS experiments will record around 100 times as many collisions as were used to discover the Higgs boson (and at twice the energy). Both NSF and DOE are making large detector upgrade investments so the HL-LHC can operate in this high-rate environment. Similar investment in software R&D for acquiring, managing, processing and analyzing HL-LHC data is critical to maximize the return-on-investment in the upgraded accelerator and detectors. This report presents a strategic plan for a possible second 5-year funded phase (2023 through 2028) for the Institute for Research and Innovation in Software for High Energy Physics (IRIS-HEP) which will close remaining software and computing gaps to deliver HL-LHC science.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Addressing the Split Incentive Challenge for Enhanced Solar Adoption in Multifamily Rental Properties [Abstract]

The split incentive problem is particularly pronounced in rental markets, where landlords prioritize investments that directly increase property value or rental income. Since energy savings from solar photovoltaic (PV) systems primarily benefit tenants, landlords may perceive little return on investment unless mechanisms exist to recapture some of the financial gains. The primary objective of this project is to develop a publicly available, web-based tool to analyze the U.S. Department of Energy’s ResStock database, which models the U.S. residential building stock. The tool allows users to filter buildings by location, type, HVAC system, square footage, and other characteristics, and outputs typical electric load profiles. By leveraging location-specific electric load data, Fram Energy aims to advance business strategies that address the split incentive barrier and promote the adoption of solar PV installations in rental properties. In addition, a machine learning model will be developed to weigh the marginal contribution of building features across the dataset in predicting electricity demand, supporting guided decision making in forecasting electric load profiles. Lastly, based on each building’s location, load profile, and utility’s electricity rate, an optimized solar photovoltaic array and battery energy storage system will be sized to provide energy arbitrage opportunities.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗