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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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Final Technical Report for Contract No. DE-EE0006332, "Integrated Simulation Development and Decision Support Tool-Set for Utility Market and Distributed Solar Power Generation"

This project will enable utilities to develop long-term strategic plans that integrate high levels of renewable energy generation, and to better plan power system operations under high renewable penetration. The program developed forecast data streams for decision support and effective integration of centralized and distributed solar power generation in utility operations. This toolset focused on real time simulation of distributed power generation within utility grids with the emphasis on potential applications in day ahead (market) and real time (reliability) utility operations. The project team developed and demonstrated methodologies for quantifying the impact of distributed solar generation on core utility operations, identified protocols for internal data communication requirements, and worked with utility personnel to adapt the new distributed generation (DG) forecasts seamlessly within existing Load and Generation procedures through a sophisticated DMS. This project supported the objectives of the SunShot Initiative and SUNRISE by enabling core utility operations to enhance their simulation capability to analyze and prepare for the impacts of high penetrations of solar on the power grid. The impact of high penetration solar PV on utility operations is not only limited to control centers, but across many core operations. Benefits of an enhanced DMS using state-of-the-art solar forecast data were demonstrated within this project and have had an immediate direct operational cost savings for Energy Marketing for Day Ahead generation commitments, Real Time Operations, Load Forecasting (at an aggregate system level for Day Ahead), Demand Response, Long term Planning (asset management), Distribution Operations, and core ancillary services as required for balancing and reliability. This provided power system operators with the necessary tools and processes to operate the grid in a reliable manner under high renewable penetration.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
NASA NTRS2010

A Coordinated Effort to Address Space Weather and Environment Needs

The growing need for coordination of the many aspects of space environments is directly related to our increasing dependence on space assets. An obvious result is that there is a need for a coordinated effort to organize and make accessible the increasing number of space environment products that include space environment models and observations, material testing, and forecasting tools. This paper outlines a concept to establish a NASA-level Applied Spaceflight Environments (ASE) office that will provide coordination and funding for sustained multi-program support in three technical areas; (1) natural environments characterization and modeling, (2) environmental effects on materials and systems, (3) and operational and forecasting space environments modeling. Additionally the ASE office will serve as an entry point of contact for external users who wish to take advantage of data and assets associated with space environments, including space weather.

Minow, Joe↗
DOE OSTI2023

Data and Tools for Exploring New Pumped Storage Hydropower Deployment Opportunities

Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is a flexible energy storage technology with the potential to facilitate variable renewable energy integration into the decarbonized electric grid of the future. NREL is developing new data and tools to help understand opportunities for new PSH deployment, including nationwide resource assessment data, a bottom-up component-level cost model, and a lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions calculator. These datasets lay the foundation for better-informed grid planning decisions about how PSH fits into a future portfolio of generation, transmission, and storage assets.

CEM↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Importance of Inventory for Informing Waste Strategy - 20280

A waste inventory aims to present the best available information about the nature, quantity and location of radioactive wastes and materials at a facility, site or in a country. Quality inventory data is necessary for developing appropriate strategies and plans for managing radioactive wastes and materials, with high standards of protection for people and the environment. The inventory of wastes will change over time due to a wide range of technical, commercial or policy reasons, for example, if reactor lifetimes are extended, if decommissioning strategies change or if new technologies are introduced for managing waste. Inventory information can also improve as better waste characterisation data becomes available. At a facility or site level, good quality inventory data are needed to underpin decision making about the waste management options and to demonstrate compliance with the chosen treatment or disposal route. At a site and country level, knowledge of the inventory can drive the improvement to waste strategy; waste management asset and service planning; and implementation. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2025

Vulcan Test Platform: Demonstrating the Data Center as a Flexible Grid Asset

Explosive data center demand is outpacing grid infrastructure development. AI workloads and hyperscale cloud growth are creating unprecedented power requirements, while traditional grid expansion faces multi-year development timelines, regulatory hurdles, and decarbonization challenges. Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners recognized this impending crisis years ago and founded Verrus to develop an innovative solution: data centers that function as grid assets rather than passive loads. The Verrus approach integrates proprietary grid-aware controls with battery energy storage systems (BESS) in a medium-voltage architecture that delivers three critical capabilities: Fast-responding demand flexibility that can service requests from the utility within 10 seconds, Uninterrupted transition to islanded operation during grid disturbances, Continuous uptime assurance while maintaining all customer service level commitments Through Verrus' strategic partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), we validated these capabilities on Vulcan, a 70 MW utility-scale test platform powered by NREL's ARIES Virtual Emulation Environment. This deployment-ready technology has successfully demonstrated that Verrus data centers can deliver meaningful grid services while maintaining mission-critical reliability. This technical report outlines the design, methodology, and results of this emulated deployment, demonstrating that data centers can play a pivotal role in enhancing grid flexibility and reliability, without sacrificing service level guarantees.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS2001

Challenges and Lessons Learned in the Application of Autonomy to Space Operations

NASA's Space Operations Management Office (SOMO) is working toward a goal of providing an integrated infrastructure of mission and data services for space missions undertaken by NASA enterprises. A significant portion of this effort is focused on reducing the cost of these services. We are interested in the potential of autonomy to reduce operations costs. SOMO services support space missions, but are not part of the mission objectives; therefore the level of acceptable risk is very low. In fact, SOMO could be effective ly prevented from applying autonomy if customers merely perceive it as adding risk to their mission(s). We are interested in this workshop from the standpoint of understanding what can be done to realize the potential cost savings due to autonomy while maintaining acceptable risk and serving the needs of our customers. We would like to present our lessons learned so far in adopting autonomy and automation, which we think will contribute to clarifying the challenges facing the use of such technology. SOMO provides services to a diverse and ambitious set of mission customers. Many of these missions are groundbreaking missions for which communications, data, and other operations requirements sometimes cannot be clearly articulated early in the program. This motivates a need for systems that are robust in the face of unanticipated situations so that customer missions are not unreasonably constrained or impacted by "shortcomings" in SOMO services. One of SOMO's primary goals is to realize a paradigm in which SOMO acts as a service provider to organizations that fly space missions for NASA, other government agencies, and even the commercial sector. These organizations purchase SOMO services "by the pound" as customers. We have to provide systems that are not experiments themselves, but rather stable bases from which to do bold experiments. To this end, SOMO also seeks to work closely with industry to see that robust autonomy technology gets infused into products and services for the space industry and beyond. The potential for application of these technologies spans space-based communications networks (e.g. TDRSS) and ground-based assets including communication and tracking antenna systems, data networks, and control centers. There are several problems that are candidates for the application of autonomy, if it can be made reliable enough, including: antenna control, antenna scheduling, communication link scheduling and operation, navigation, attitude determination, fault detection, isolation, and reconfiguration (for spacecraft or ground assets), and mission-level planning and scheduling. Some attempts have been made to apply autonomy and automation in these areas in the past with varying degrees of success. We will present relevant case histories and the lessons inferred from them. Combining this past experience with anticipated future needs, we can clarify the challenges that must be met in order to realize the benefits of autonomy.

Forrest, David J.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Software Bill of Materials in the Nuclear Industry

Nuclear power plants (NPP) have thousands of digital assets throughout their facility. Typically, NPPs have asset and configuration management programs that capture the make, model, and version of a component. This information, however, usually only includes first- or second-tier components and does not capture the complete enumeration of software components and their dependencies within operational technology (OT) equipment. As seen with recent cyberattacks, this level of detail is insufficient for identifying if and where an exploitable vulnerability exists within a facility. A software bill of materials (SBOM) provides this detailed enumeration. Further, integrating SBOMs with vulnerability data sources and vulnerability attestation reports can provide improved awareness leading to better cyber risk management and incident response. Preferably, SBOMs are provided by the supplier; however, when an NPP already owns a device, it is less likely they will have a supplier provided-SBOM. Fortunately, SBOMs can be generated on installed digital assets. This paper provides an introduction to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy paper titled “Towards Software Bill of Materials in the Nuclear Industry,” which describes the SBOM ecosystem and provides a suggested approach to methodically and seamlessly integrate an SBOM program in an NPP.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2022

Advanced Hydropower and PSH Capacity Expansion Modeling (Final Report on HydroWIRES D1 Improvements to Capacity Expansion Modeling)

Hydropower and pumped-storage hydropower (PSH) have played a key role in providing flexible, low-carbon electricity to the U.S. electricity system for over a century. As variable generation (VG) deployment increases the demand for flexible, dispatchable generation, it is important to use all available methods for understanding how hydropower and PSH interfaces with VG in a future low-carbon grid. Capacity expansion models (CEMs) of electricity systems are often used to study future electricity scenarios, but these tools often have difficulty representing site- and technology-details of hydropower and PSH due to limited spatial, temporal, or process resolution. This report demonstrates a set of model advancements to improve hydropower and PSH representations in CEMs and other models that consider hydropower and PSH's role in electricity systems. Model advancements include new data integration to define closed-loop PSH resource availability and cost, along with site-level parameterizations of existing PSH capacity and energy storage specifications. Shifting energy across seasons for both hydropower and PSH is explored to demonstrate the potential value of long-duration storage. New representations of hydropower upgrades offer opportunities to increase dispatchability, add pumps, or independently add capacity or energy depending on what is most valuable. New model structures and data are demonstrated individually and in combination to observe their impact on model results and provide initial insights into what is most important for analysts, electricity system planners, and hydropower decision-makers to consider when assessing future roles of hydropower. Improving flexibility of existing hydropower assets has the potential to reduce CO 2 emissions through complementing VG technologies and/or improve electricity system economics by reducing the need to deploy higher-cost systems. Large-scale energy storage is also shown to provide opportunities for balancing seasonal differences in VG, particularly solar photovoltaics (PV). Initial analysis with a new closed-loop PSH resource and cost dataset also demonstrate the potential for new PSH deployment to offer new grid flexibility opportunities. Future analysis and modeling of hydropower's role in the U.S. and other electricity systems could include methodological improvements based on those discussed here along with sensitivity analysis to better represent current and future potential hydropower and PSH flexibility. Improvements to geospatial and site-level data can further improve the understanding of how hydropower and PSH can be upgraded and operated in response to future electricity system needs. This work lays the groundwork to use advanced planning models to explore the range of roles hydropower and PSH can play in the grid of the future.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Commercial, industrial, and institutional discount rate estimation for efficiency standards analysis: Sector-level data 1998–2023

Underlying each of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) federal appliance and equipment energy conservation standards are a set of complex analyses of the projected costs and benefits of regulation. Any new or amended standard must be designed to achieve significant additional energy conservation, provided that it is technologically feasible and economically justified (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(2)(A)). DOE determines economic justification based on whether the benefits exceed the burdens, considering a variety of factors, including the economic impact of the standard on consumers of the product and the savings in lifetime operating cost compared to any increase in price or maintenance expenses (42 U.S.C. 6295(o)(2)(B)). As part of this determination, DOE conducts a life-cycle cost (LCC) analysis, which models the combined impact of appliance first cost and operating cost changes on a representative commercial building sample to identify the fraction of customers achieving LCC savings or incurring net cost at the considered efficiency levels. Thus, the commercial discount rate value(s) used to calculate the present value of energy cost savings within the LCC model implicitly plays a role in estimating the economic impact of potential standard levels. This report provides an in-depth discussion of the commercial discount rate estimation process relying on the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to estimate a business’ cost of equity, and by adding a risk adjustment factor to the risk-free rate associated with long-term U.S. Treasury bonds to estimate their cost of debt. It is an update to previous reports on estimating commercial discount rates from firm-level and sector-level financial data (e.g., Fujita, 2021, 2016). Major topics covered in this report include the following: • Discount rate estimation methods and rationale • Data sources used and data limitations • Discount rate distributions for use in standards analysis • Discount rate estimation methods and distributions specific to the small business subgroup analysis.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Towards Software Bill of Materials in the Nuclear Industry

Large, modern industrial facilities often incorporate thousands of digital assets in their operational technology. Regulated facilities, such as nuclear power plants (NPPs), maintain robust cybersecurity and configuration management programs that often use bills of materials (BOMs) for these assets, including make, model, and version of hardware, firmware, and software. However, these BOMs typically capture only first- or second-tier information provided by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Unfortunately, as indicated by the increasing number and sophistication of software supply chain attacks, this level of detail is insufficient for identifying all the potential vulnerabilities and risks in software applications. Software BOMs (SBOMs) provide detailed enumeration of components and dependencies within the product or devices, including firmware. SBOMs can be combined with vulnerability data sources and vendor vulnerability attestations to improve vulnerability management and enable rapid identification of affected components when new software vulnerabilities are discovered. Ideally, SBOMs are created by the OEM prior to installation. However, since this practice is not yet commonplace and since NPPs are typically slow to adopt new technology, most NPPs do not incorporate SBOMs into their asset or configuration management programs. Fortunately, SBOMs can be generated by NPPs on existing digital assets to provide further insight into risk management decisions. This report provides an overview of the current SBOM ecosystem and recommends guidance on how to get started in a “crawl, walk, run” manner to develop and implement a sustainable SBOM program for digital assets in an NPP.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Making Better Use of Satellite Data: The Satellite Needs Working Group

The U.S. Group on Earth Observations (USGEO) initiated in 2016 the Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) to identify and communicate the Earth observation needs of U.S. federal agencies. The SNWG identifies such needs through a biennial survey followed by interviews and follow-up discussions by the satellite Earth data providers of the U.S. Government: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Solutions and services are identified that leverage current or upcoming satellite missions to meet the identified needs; implementation of services that are estimated to significantly increase the level of satisfaction of multiple U.S. agencies are funded by NASA. The SNWG process has resulted in the implementation of numerous services that have impacted operations of not only U.S. agencies but of academic and international institutions as well. Notable examples include the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 project that leverages European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA satellite assets to generate a global, analysis-ready, surface reflectance product with a temporal resolution of two days; the Airborne Data Management Group that curates and provides access to relevant resources, information and data from existing and past NASA field campaigns; and the Dynamic Surface Water Extent product which consists of harmonized but independent water extents derived from both from optical and radar data. These and other products are hosted at the NASA Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) for free and open access. The SNWG Management Office at NASA’s Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT) manages the implementation of selected solutions and, importantly, NASA’s response to the needs of federal agencies through a Stakeholder Engagement Program. The impact of implemented services and solutions is hampered without efforts to build capacity around the use of the services. The Stakeholder Engagement Program ensures relevant training and outreach to SNWG agencies in collaboration with each solution implementation team.

remote sensing↗
NASA NTRS2019

A Delay Tolerant Networking-Based Approach to a High Data Rate Architecture for Spacecraft

Historically, it has been the case that SWaP (Size, Weigh a lot, And consume Power) placed such severe constraints on radios that the links between spacecraft and the ground were relatively slow. This meant that the radio link was normally a significant bottleneck in returning scientific data. Over recent years, however, a combination of more efficient radio design, intelligent waveforms, and highly directed, high-frequency RF / optical systems have led to a rapid increase in the amount of data that can be pushed through radio and optical links. This has led to some cases where the radio links are capable of moving data much more quickly than the spacecraft and instruments are capable of actually generating it! In some instances, scientific data can therefore be lost not because the downlink is too slow to support the data rate, but instead because the spacecraft was not designed in a way that would let it fully utilize both the radio and the networking services available to it. The High Data Rate Architecture (HiDRA) project describes a packet-based approach to building modern, distributed spacecraft systems. It presents a means for spacecraft and other assets to participate in both present and future Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN), while simultaneously ensuring that the asset is able to fully utilize the new, high-speed links that have been seeing more widespread development and deployment in recent years. With this in mind, this paper begins with a discussion regarding HiDRA's evolution. Next, it discusses the capabilities and limitations of NASA's present DTN-enabled networks. Of particular note is the way in which principles of network designate the terrestrial level (e.g., use of programmable networks / software-defined networks, separation between data and control plane, infusion of COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) Ethernet switch chips, etc.) can all be translated into the space environment as well. After this, the paper discusses the design and implementation of a present prototype reference implementation of High-Rate DTN (HDTN),which is intended to demonstrate future high-rate networking concepts as part of a coherent demonstration on the International Space Station (ISS). The goal, of both the research and of this implementation, is to help develop a ready-made toolbox of ideas, approaches, and examples from which mission designers can draw when putting together new missions. Assuming all goes as planned, this should not only work to reduce the cost of individual mission design, but also improve the rate at which science data can be returned for mission participants to review.

Hylton, Alan↗
NASA NTRS2019

A Delay Tolerant Networking-Based Approach to a High Data Rate Architecture for Spacecraft

Historically, it has been the case that SWaP placed such severe constraints on radios that the links between spacecraft and the ground were relatively slow. This meant that the radio link was normally a significant bottleneck in returning scientific data. Over recent years, however, a combination of more efficient radio design, intelligent waveforms, and highly directed, high-frequency RF / optical systems have led to a rapid increase in the amount of data that can be pushed through radio and optical links. This has led to some cases where the radio links are capable of moving data much more quickly than the spacecraft and instruments are capable of actually generating it! In some instances, scientific data can therefore be lost not because the downlink is too slow to support the data rate, but instead because the spacecraft was not designed in a way that would let it fully utilize both the radio and the networking services available to it.The High Data Rate Architecture (HiDRA) project describes a packet-based approach to building modern, distributed spacecraft systems. It presents a means for spacecraft and other assets to participate in both present and future Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN), while simultaneously ensuring that the asset is able to fully utilize the new, high-speed links that have been seeing more widespread development and deployment in recent years. With this in mind, this paper begins with a discussion regarding HiDRA's evolution. Next, it discusses the capabilities and limitations of NASA's present DTN-enabled networks. Of particular note is the way in which principles of network design at the terrestrial level (e.g. use of programmable networks / software-defined networks, separation between data and control plane, infusion of COTS Ethernet switch chips, etc.) can all be translated into the space environment as well. After this, the paper discusses the design and implementation of a present prototype reference implementation of High-Rate DTN (HDTN), which is intended to demonstrate future high-rate networking concepts as part of a coherent demonstration on the International Space Station (ISS). The goal, of both the research and of this implementation, is to help develop a ready-made toolbox of ideas, approaches, and examples from which mission designers can draw when putting together new missions. Assuming all goes as planned, this should not only work to reduce the cost of individual mission design, but also improve the rate at which science data can be returned for mission participants to review.

Hylton, Alan↗
DOE OSTI2025

Existing Hydropower Assets (EHA) Capacity Plant Database, 2005-2024

Existing Hydropower Asset (EHA) Annual Capacity is a geospatial point-level dataset containing annual capacity over the years (2005-2024) and key characteristics of operational U.S. hydropower plants with 1 megawatt or greater of nameplate capacity. EIA form 860 and EHA are the primary sources of the derived data.

Johnson, Megan [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000290141741)↗
NASA NTRS2011

In Situ Surface Characterization

Operation of in situ space assets, such as rovers and landers, requires operators to acquire a thorough understanding of the environment surrounding the spacecraft. The following programs help with that understanding by providing higher-level information characterizing the surface, which is not immediately obvious by just looking at the XYZ terrain data. This software suite covers three primary programs: marsuvw, marsrough, and marsslope, and two secondary programs, which together use XYZ data derived from in situ stereo imagery to characterize the surface by determining surface normal, surface roughness, and various aspects of local slope, respectively. These programs all use the Planetary Image Geometry (PIG) library to read mission-specific data files. The programs themselves are completely multimission; all mission dependencies are handled by PIG. The input data consists of images containing XYZ locations as derived by, e.g., marsxyz. The marsuvw program determines surface normals from XYZ data by gathering XYZ points from an area around each pixel and fitting a plane to those points. Outliers are rejected, and various consistency checks are applied. The result shows the orientation of the local surface at each point as a unit vector. The program can be run in two modes: standard, which is typically used for in situ arm work, and slope, which is typically used for rover mobility. The difference is primarily due to optimizations necessary for the larger patch sizes in the slope case. The marsrough program determines surface roughness in a small area around each pixel, which is defined as the maximum peak-to-peak deviation from the plane perpendicular to the surface normal at that pixel. The marsslope program takes a surface normal file as input and derives one of several slope-like outputs from it. The outputs include slope, slope rover direction (a measure of slope radially away from the rover), slope heading, slope magnitude, northerly tilt, and solar energy (compares the slope with the Sun s location at local noon). The marsuvwproj program projects a surface normal onto an arbitrary plane in space, resulting in a normalized 3D vector, which is constrained to lie in the plane. The marsuvwrot program rotates the vectors in a surface normal file, generating a new surface normal file. It also can change coordinate systems for an existing surface normal file. While the algorithms behind this suite are not particularly unique, what makes the programs useful is their integration into the larger in situ image processing system via the PIG library. They work directly with space in situ data, understanding the appropriate image metadata fields and updating them properly. The secondary programs (marsuvwproj, marsuvwrot) were originally developed to deal with anomalous situations on Opportunity and Spirit, respectively, but may have more general applicability.

Deen, Robert G.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Impacts of Variable Renewable Energy on Bulk Power System Assets, Pricing, and Costs

We synthesize available literature, data, and analysis on the degree to which growth in variable renewable energy (VRE) has impacted to date or might in the future impact bulk power system assets, pricing, and costs. We do not analyze impacts on specific power plants, instead focusing on national and regional system-level trends. The issues addressed are highly context dependent—affected by the underlying generation mix of the system, the amount of wind and solar penetration, and the design and structure of the bulk power system in each region. Moreover, analyzing the impacts of VRE on the bulk power system is a complex area of research and there is much more to be done to increase understanding of how VRE impacts the dynamics of current and future electricity markets. While more analysis is warranted, including additional location-specific assessments, several high-level findings emerge from this synthesis: -VRE Is Already Impacting the Bulk Power Market -VRE Impacts on Average Wholesale Prices Have Been Modest -VRE Impacts on Power Plant Retirements Have So Far Been Limited -VRE Impacts on the Bulk Power Market will Grow with Penetration -The ’System Value’ of VRE will Decline with Penetration -Power System Flexibility Can Reduce the Rate of VRE Value Decline All generation types are unique in some respect—bringing benefits and challenges to the power system—and wholesale markets, industry investments, and operational procedures have evolved over time to manage the characteristics of a changing generation fleet. With increased VRE penetrations, power system planners, operators, regulators, and policymakers will continue to be challenged to develop methods to smoothly and cost-effectively manage the reliable integration of these new and growing sources of electricity supply.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2025

Existing Hydropower Assets (EHA) Capacity Factor Plant Database, 2005-2024

Existing Hydropower Asset (EHA) Annual Capacity Factor is a geospatial point-level dataset containing annual capacity factors over the years (2005-2024) and key characteristics of operational U.S. hydropower plants with 1 megawatt or greater of nameplate capacity. EIA form 860 and EHA are the primary sources of the derived data. Pumped storage and hybrid plants are excluded.

Johnson, Megan [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000290141741)↗