Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “DEFORESTATION”

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 559 records · Page 31
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2011

Evaluation of evolving residential electricity tariffs

Residential customers in California's Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) territory have seen several electricity rate structure changes in the past decade. A relatively simple two-tiered pricing system (charges by usage under/over baseline for the home's climate zone) was replaced in the summer of 2001 by a more complicated five-tiered system (usage below baseline and up to 30percent, 100percent, 200percent, and 300percent+ over baseline). In 2009, PG&E began the process of upgrading its residential customers to Smart Meters and laying the groundwork for time of use pricing, due to start in 2011. This paper examines the history of the tiered pricing system, discusses the problems the utility encountered with its Smart Meter roll out, and evaluates the proposed dynamic pricing incentive structures. Scenario analyses of example PG&E customer bills will also be presented. What would these residential customers pay if they were still operating under a tiered structure, and/or if they participated in peak hour reductions?

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2011

A Green Prison: Santa Rita Jail Creeps Towards Zero Net Energy (ZNE)

A large project is underway at Alameda County's twenty-year old 45 ha 4,000-inmate Santa Rita Jail, about 70 km east of San Francisco. Often described as a green prison, it has a considerable installed base of distributed energy resources including a seven-year old 1.2 MW PV array, a four-year old 1 MW fuel cell with heat recovery, and efficiency investments. A current US$14 M expansion will add approximately 2 MW of NaS batteries, and undetermined wind capacity and a concentrating solar thermal system. This ongoing effort by a progressive local government with considerable Federal and State support provides some excellent lessons for the struggle to lower building carbon footprint. The Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) finds true optimal combinations of equipment and operating schedules for microgrids that minimize energy bills and/or carbon emissions without 2 of 12 significant searching or rules-of-thumb prioritization, such as"efficiency first then on-site generation." The results often recommend complex systems, and sensitivities show how policy changes will affect choices. This paper reports an analysis of the historic performance of the PV system and fuel cell, describes the complex optimization applied to the battery scheduling, and shows how results will affect the jail's operational costs, energy consumption, and carbon footprint. DER-CAM is used to assess the existing and proposed DER equipment in its ability to reduce tariff charges.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2011

Application of the Software as a Service Model to the Control of Complex Building Systems

In an effort to create broad access to its optimization software, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), in collaboration with the University of California at Davis (UC Davis) and OSISoft, has recently developed a Software as a Service (SaaS) Model for reducing energy costs, cutting peak power demand, and reducing carbon emissions for multipurpose buildings. UC Davis currently collects and stores energy usage data from buildings on its campus. Researchers at LBNL sought to demonstrate that a SaaS application architecture could be built on top of this data system to optimize the scheduling of electricity and heat delivery in the building. The SaaS interface, known as WebOpt, consists of two major parts: a) the investment& planning and b) the operations module, which builds on the investment& planning module. The operational scheduling and load shifting optimization models within the operations module use data from load prediction and electrical grid emissions models to create an optimal operating schedule for the next week, reducing peak electricity consumption while maintaining quality of energy services. LBNL's application also provides facility managers with suggested energy infrastructure investments for achieving their energy cost and emission goals based on historical data collected with OSISoft's system. This paper describes these models as well as the SaaS architecture employed by LBNL researchers to provide asset scheduling services to UC Davis. The peak demand, emissions, and cost implications of the asset operation schedule and investments suggested by this optimization model are analyzed.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2011

Evaluation of evolving residential electricity tariffs

Residential customers in California's Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) territory have seen several electricity rate structure changes in the past decade. This poster: examines the history of the residential pricing structure and key milestones; summarizes and analyzes the usage between 2006 and 2009 for different baseline/climate areas; discusses the residential electricity Smart Meter roll out; and compares sample bills for customers in two climates under the current pricing structure and also the future time of use (TOU) structure.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Applications of Optimal Building Energy System Selection and Operation

Berkeley Lab has been developing the Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) for several years. Given load curves for energy services requirements in a building microgrid (u grid), fuel costs and other economic inputs, and a menu of available technologies, DER-CAM finds the optimum equipment fleet and its optimum operating schedule using a mixed integer linear programming approach. This capability is being applied using a software as a service (SaaS) model. Optimisation problems are set up on a Berkeley Lab server and clients can execute their jobs as needed, typically daily. The evolution of this approach is demonstrated by description of three ongoing projects. The first is a public access web site focused on solar photovoltaic generation and battery viability at large commercial and industrial customer sites. The second is a building CO2 emissions reduction operations problem for a University of California, Davis student dining hall for which potential investments are also considered. And the third, is both a battery selection problem and a rolling operating schedule problem for a large County Jail. Together these examples show that optimization of building u grid design and operation can be effectively achieved using SaaS.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2011

Smart buildings with electric vehicle interconnection as buffer for local renewables?

Some conclusions from this presentation are: (1) EV Charging/discharging pattern mainly depends on the objective of the building (cost versus CO{sub 2}); (2) performed optimization runs show that stationary batteries are more attractive than mobile storage when putting more focus on CO{sub 2} emissions because stationary storage is available 24 hours a day for energy management - it's more effective; (3) stationary storage will be charged by PV, mobile only marginally; and (4) results will depend on the considered region and tariff. Final research work will show the results for 138 different buildings in nine different climate zones and three major utility service territories.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2011

Integration& Operation of a Microgrid at Santa Rita Jail

Santa Rita Jail is a 4,500 inmate facility located in Dublin CA, approximately 40 miles (65 km) east of San Francisco. Over the past decade, a series of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) installations and efficiency measures have been undertaken to transform the 3MW facility into a"Green Jail". These include a 1.2MW rated rooftop PV system installed in 2002, a 1MW molten carbonate fuel cell with CHP, and retrofits to lighting and HVAC systems to reduce peak loads. With the upcoming installation of a large-scale battery and fast static disconnect switch, Santa Rita Jail will become a true microgrid, with full CERTS Microgrid functionality. Consequently, the jail will be able to seamlessly disconnect from the grid and operate as an island in the event of a disturbance, reconnecting again once the disturbance has dissipated. The extent to which that jail is capable of islanding is principally dependant on the energy capacity of the battery-one focus of this investigation. Also presented here are overviews of the DER currently installed at the jail, as well as the value it provides by offsetting the purchase of electricity under the current Pacific Gas& Electric (PG&E) tariff.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2011

Application of the Software as a Service Model to the Control of Complex Building Systems

In an effort to create broad access to its optimization software, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), in collaboration with the University of California at Davis (UC Davis) and OSISoft, has recently developed a Software as a Service (SaaS) Model for reducing energy costs, cutting peak power demand, and reducing carbon emissions for multipurpose buildings. UC Davis currently collects and stores energy usage data from buildings on its campus. Researchers at LBNL sought to demonstrate that a SaaS application architecture could be built on top of this data system to optimize the scheduling of electricity and heat delivery in the building. The SaaS interface, known as WebOpt, consists of two major parts: a) the investment& planning and b) the operations module, which builds on the investment& planning module. The operational scheduling and load shifting optimization models within the operations module use data from load prediction and electrical grid emissions models to create an optimal operating schedule for the next week, reducing peak electricity consumption while maintaining quality of energy services. LBNL's application also provides facility managers with suggested energy infrastructure investments for achieving their energy cost and emission goals based on historical data collected with OSISoft's system. This paper describes these models as well as the SaaS architecture employed by LBNL researchers to provide asset scheduling services to UC Davis. The peak demand, emissions, and cost implications of the asset operation schedule and investments suggested by this optimization model are analysed.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2012

A Green Prison: The Santa Rita Jail Campus Microgrid

A large microgrid project is nearing completion at Alameda County’s twenty-two-year-old 45 ha 4,000-inmate Santa Rita Jail, about 70 km east of San Francisco. Often described as a green prison, it has a considerable installed base of distributed energy resources (DER) including an eight-year old 1.2 MW PV array, a five-year old 1 MW fuel cell with heat recovery, and considerable efficiency investments. A current US$14 M expansion adds a 2 MW-4 MWh Li-ion battery, a static disconnect switch, and various controls upgrades. During grid blackouts, or when conditions favor it, the Jail can now disconnect from the grid and operate as an island, using the on-site resources described together with its back-up diesel generators. In other words, the Santa Rita Jail is a true microgrid, or μgrid, because it fills both requirements, i.e. it is a locally controlled system, and it can operate both grid connected and islanded. The battery’s electronics includes Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology (CERTS) Microgrid technology. This enables the battery to maintain energy balance using droops without need for a fast control system.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2013

Global warming accelerates drought-induced forest death

Many southwestern forests in the United States will disappear or be heavily altered by 2050, according to a series of joint Los Alamos National Laboratory-University of New Mexico studies. Nathan McDowell, a Los Alamos plant physiologist, and William Pockman, a UNM biology professor, explain that their research, and more from scientists around the world, is forecasting that by 2100 most conifer forests should be heavily disturbed, if not gone, as air temperatures rise in combination with drought. "Everybody knows trees die when there's a drought, if there's bark beetles or fire, yet nobody in the world can predict it with much accuracy." McDowell said. "What's really changed is that the temperature is going up," thus the researchers are imposing artificial drought conditions on segments of wild forest in the Southwest and pushing forests to their limit to discover the exact processes of mortality and survival. The study is centered on drought experiments in woodlands at both Los Alamos and the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico. Both sites are testing hypotheses about how forests die on mature, wild trees, rather than seedlings in a greenhouse, through the ecosystem-scale removal of 50 percent of yearly precipitation through large water-diversion trough systems.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2013

Thermal Energy Storage for Electricity Peak-demand Mitigation: A Solution in Developing and Developed World Alike

In much of the developed world, air-conditioning in buildings is the dominant driver of summer peak electricity demand. In the developing world a steadily increasing utilization of air-conditioning places additional strain on already-congested grids. This common thread represents a large and growing threat to the reliable delivery of electricity around the world, requiring capital-intensive expansion of capacity and draining available investment resources. Thermal energy storage (TES), in the form of ice or chilled water, may be one of the few technologies currently capable of mitigating this problem cost effectively and at scale. The installation of TES capacity allows a building to meet its on-peak air conditioning load without interruption using electricity purchased off-peak and operating with improved thermodynamic efficiency. In this way, TES has the potential to fundamentally alter consumption dynamics and reduce impacts of air conditioning. This investigation presents a simulation study of a large office building in four distinct geographical contexts: Miami, Lisbon, Shanghai, and Mumbai. The optimization tool DER-CAM (Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model) is applied to optimally size TES systems for each location. Summer load profiles are investigated to assess the effectiveness and consistency in reducing peak electricity demand. Additionally, annual energy requirements are used to determine system cost feasibility, payback periods and customer savings under local utility tariffs.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗