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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 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Optimizing DER Deployment for Climate, Health, Resilience, and Energy Bill Benefits Using the REopt Model

Climate change, public health, and resilience to power outages are of critical concern to local governments, federal agencies, and the private sector, and are increasingly motivating investments in distributed energy resources (DERs). However, designing a solar-plus-storage system to co-optimize for climate, health, resilience, and energy bill benefits requires complex trade-offs. To address this need, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has integrated climate and health impacts of grid-purchased electricity and on-site fuel consumption into the publicly-available REopt web tool and API - a techno-economic model that determines the cost-optimal DER system sizes and dispatch strategy. This presentation will provide an overview of the tool's methodology, datasets, and capabilities, including costing emissions into system sizing and dispatch and setting emissions reductions targets. Results of previous work will demonstrate the use of new emissions accounting capabilities by quantifying the impact of including climate and health costs on the optimal resilient microgrid configurations for a hospital, school, and warehouse across 14 U.S. cities.

climate↗
DOE OSTI2021

Integration of Open-Source URBANopt and Dragonfly Energy Modeling Capabilities into Practitioner Workflows for District-Scale Planning and Design

High-performance districts and communities offer opportunities for reducing energy use, emissions, and costs, and can be instrumental in helping cities achieve their climate goals. The design of such communities requires identification of opportunities early on and their re-evaluation throughout the planning process. There is a need for energy modeling tools that connect 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD) platforms to simulation engines, enabling detailed energy analysis of districts within the workflows and tools used by practitioners. This paper introduces the Dragonfly and URBANoptTM combined toolset that supports the creation of urban models from a range of geometry formats typically used by designers and planners, and provides an integrated pathway to simulate district-scale energy systems. The toolset is piloted by a global architecture and master planning firm to evaluate several key urban-scale technical questions for the design of a district in Chicago. The findings indicate that, while energy savings can be achieved through traditional architectural studies and enhancements to individual building efficiency, the modeling toolset helps identify additional savings and insights that can be achieved when considering district-scale energy systems. Finally, this study demonstrates how the Dragonfly/URBANopt toolset can integrate with master planning workflows, thereby enabling an iterative performance-based design process.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Retrospective Analysis of Distributed Solar Interconnection Timelines and Related State Mandates

Most distributed residential photovoltaic (PV) systems must secure an interconnection agreement prior to operation that ensures the local electrical system will operate safely within the broader electrical grid. PV installers generally submit an interconnection application to the local utility that provides all the necessary details the utility needs to evaluate the proposed system. To encourage timely execution of this process, many states’ utility commissions have established mandates that limit the maximum number of days allowed for utility review and approval of interconnection for certain small, often residential applications. In this paper, we derive the median and range of cycle times for the pre-installation approval phase of the interconnection process (i.e., from application submission to approval by the utility) across 24 U.S. states, using a data set of approximately 170,000 projects. We evaluate the percentage of projects that are approved within respective state-mandated timelines from 2017– 2019. We further evaluate how timelines have evolved since 2012 for a subset of five states: Arizona, California, Colorado, New Jersey, and New York. The analyses are divided into two size ranges: systems that are ≤10 kilowatts (kW), and systems that are 11–50 kW.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2005

Probabilistic Reasoning for Plan Robustness

A planning system must reason about the uncertainty of continuous variables in order to accurately project the possible system state over time. A method is devised for directly reasoning about the uncertainty in continuous activity duration and resource usage for planning problems. By representing random variables as parametric distributions, computing projected system state can be simplified in some cases. Common approximation and novel methods are compared for over-constrained and lightly constrained domains. The system compares a few common approximation methods for an iterative repair planner. Results show improvements in robustness over the conventional non-probabilistic representation by reducing the number of constraint violations witnessed by execution. The improvement is more significant for larger problems and problems with higher resource subscription levels but diminishes as the system is allowed to accept higher risk levels.

autonomous planning↗
NASA NTRS2004

Improving Project Management with Simulation and Completion Distribution Functions

Despite the critical importance of project completion timeliness, management practices in place today remain inadequate for addressing the persistent problem of project completion tardiness. A major culprit in late projects is uncertainty, which most, if not all, projects are inherently subject to. This uncertainty resides in the estimates for activity durations, the occurrence of unplanned and unforeseen events, and the availability of critical resources. In response to this problem, this research developed a comprehensive simulation based methodology for conducting quantitative project completion time risk analysis. It is called the Project Assessment by Simulation Technique (PAST). This new tool enables project stakeholders to visualize uncertainty or risk, i.e. the likelihood of their project completing late and the magnitude of the lateness, by providing them with a completion time distribution function of their projects. Discrete event simulation is used within PAST to determine the completion distribution function for the project of interest. The simulation is populated with both deterministic and stochastic elements. The deterministic inputs include planned project activities, precedence requirements, and resource requirements. The stochastic inputs include activity duration growth distributions, probabilities for events that can impact the project, and other dynamic constraints that may be placed upon project activities and milestones. These stochastic inputs are based upon past data from similar projects. The time for an entity to complete the simulation network, subject to both the deterministic and stochastic factors, represents the time to complete the project. Repeating the simulation hundreds or thousands of times allows one to create the project completion distribution function. The Project Assessment by Simulation Technique was demonstrated to be effective for the on-going NASA project to assemble the International Space Station. Approximately $500 million per month is being spent on this project, which is scheduled to complete by 2010. NASA project stakeholders participated in determining and managing completion distribution functions produced from PAST. The first result was that project stakeholders improved project completion risk awareness. Secondly, using PAST, mitigation options were analyzed to improve project completion performance and reduce total project cost.

Cates, Grant R.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Integration of DER Adoption Forecasting into Distribution Planning: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-11-00430 (Project H)

The objective of this project is to improve distributed energy resources (DER) technology, time, and locational impact analysis by incorporating customer adoption intentions and preferences into distribution planning and operations. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shall collaborate with EPRI staff to contribute to the development of methodology, literature review, analysis, and write-up for two sections of a report "Identification and Overview of Methods for Mapping DER Adoption Forecasts” and “Comparative Analysis of Methods for Mapping DER Adoption Forecasts."

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Accessing and Understanding REopt's Federal Assumptions

REopt is a techno-economic analysis platform accessible as a user-friendly web tool that facilitates life cycle cost analysis of distributed energy resources. It is typically used for preliminary assessments to identify the least-cost technology mix, system sizing, and operations strategies towards agency cost savings and resilience goals. This guide identifies and explains REopt inputs for federal life cycle cost analyses, modified from their commercial default values. These federal input defaults are based on statutory requirements for life cycle cost analyses of energy conservation measures at federal facilities per 10 CFR 436 Subpart A.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS1991

Priority scheme planning for the robust SSM/PMAD testbed

Whenever mixing priorities of manually controlled resources with those of autonomously controlled resources, the space station module power management and distribution (SSM/PMAD) environment requires cooperating expert system interaction between the planning function and the priority manager. The elements and interactions of the SSM/PMAD planning and priority management functions are presented. Their adherence to cooperating for common achievement are described. In the SSM/PMAD testbed these actions are guided by having a system planning function, KANT, which has insight to the executing system and its automated database. First, the user must be given access to all information which may have an effect on the desired outcome. Second, the fault manager element, FRAMES, must be informed as to the change so that correct diagnoses and operations take place if and when faults occur. Third, some element must engage as mediator for selection of resources and actions to be added or removed at the user's request. This is performed by the priority manager, LPLMS. Lastly, the scheduling mechanism, MAESTRO, must provide future schedules adhering to the user modified resource base.

Elges, Michael R.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Quantifying the Financial Impacts of Electric Vehicles on Utility Ratepayers and Shareholders [Slides]

Widespread electric vehicle (EV) adoption is critical for meeting economy-wide decarbonization goals and, as a result, states are considering enabling policies and rate designs to accelerate EV deployment. EVs can provide possible financial upside to electric utilities and ratepayers in several ways. For example, from the utility perspective, EVs could drive increased electricity sales and new earnings opportunities through increased capital investments. From the ratepayer perspective, increased electric loads from EVs could reduce average all-in retail rates. The degree to which there are net benefits or costs to shareholders and/or ratepayers depends on how EVs are integrated and managed through enabling grid investments and charging strategies. Using Berkeley Lab’s Financial Impacts of Distributed Energy Resources (FINDER) model that mimics the electric utility investment planning and ratemaking processes, we estimate the utility earnings and customer rate impacts of EVs using a bookend approach of “managed” (i.e., best case) and “mismanaged” (i.e., worst case) charging strategies for a generic summer-peaking, investor-owned, and vertically integrated utility. The analysis also examines the sensitivity of results to different assumptions of EV deployment characteristics, EV impacts on retail electricity sales, incremental distribution system costs, EV charging location, and utility EV enablement costs (i.e., utility costs to invest in EV charging, controls, and communication to deliver and administer EV programs). The results are intended to inform EV policies and deployment strategies that maximize utility system benefits and minimize ratepayer costs.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

NREL Planning Resources for States

This presentation summarizes some NREL resources and capabilities that states might want to access to help with decarbonization planning. It describes three types of resources: already-available, public datasets describing technology costs and future grid evolution; jurisdiction-specific integration studies that require directly partnering with NREL; and an envisioned new data product comprising state-specific standard scenarios that could be collaboratively funded by the states.

annual technology baseline↗
DOE OSTI2025

Microgrid Procurement Checklist Training: Part 1

Learn how to navigate the Microgrid Procurement Checklist, a key resource for federal agencies developing microgrid projects. This first session will provide a step-by-step walkthrough of the checklist, helping participants understand its structure, key tasks, and how to apply it in project planning.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Considerations for Developing a Regulatory Roadmap for Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Integration in Colombia

The USAID-NREL Partnership in Colombia, in conjunction with SURE and USEA, selected four action plan teams from the Young Professionals Leadership Program to receive tailored NREL technical assistance to support action plan implementation. The four plans selected represent various aspects associated with planning for the efficient integration of DERs, including electric mobility, residential and commercial energy applications, distributed generation modeling, and regulatory considerations. In response to national grid modernization, decentralization, digitalization, and electrification trends, CREG is looking to update Colombia's electric distribution code, with an emphasis on the integration of electric vehicles and charging stations, but also energy storage systems, non-conventional sources of renewable energy, and other distributed energy resources (DERs). CREG aims to establish the general steps that must be carried out to update the distribution code for the integration of DERs, with a view to the design and development of new markets. The objective of the TA provided to CREG was to support them in identifying and outlining the general processes and approaches to consider when updating Colombia's distribution code for the integration of electric vehicles, distributed renewable energy systems, and energy storage systems, with a view to the design and development of new markets.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

An Integrated Paradigm for the Management of Delivery Risk in Electricity Markets: From Batteries to Insurance and Beyond [Slides]

In wholesale electricity markets today, flexibility from a limited number of distributed energy resources (DERs) is offered daily, and the value of flexibility is not yet recognized for economic hedging of delivery risk. Under a three-year project funded by the ARPA-E PERFORM program, a collaborative team is working towards developing an integrated risk management framework that will leverage flexibility from distributed and bulk resources to cost-effectively and reliably manage delivery risk of intermittent resources. Two concepts are at the core of the proposed integrated risk management framework: (A) flexibility options, which are a novel type of options and enable wholesale electricity market participants to hedge uncertainty by buying flexibility. (B) DER flexibility scores, which provide a way for utilities or aggregators to classify assets in groups with different likelihood of delivering contracted flexibility. This report presentation will focus on the proposed ISO-product "flexibility options," which is complementary to ramp and other products being introduced by ISOs/RTOs to manage net load uncertainties. Participating resources with imbalance risk can buy flexibility options to hedge their production, whereas grid-connected resources that can provide physical flexibility can offer flexibility options. We will present basics of the formulation for a day-ahead ISO market that matches buyers and sellers of this hedge in coordination with existing capabilities to schedule energy and ancillary services, and outline how their settlements mitigate the impact of imbalance risk.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS1988

Integrated resource scheduling in a distributed scheduling environment

The Space Station era presents a highly-complex multi-mission planning and scheduling environment exercised over a highly distributed system. In order to automate the scheduling process, customers require a mechanism for communicating their scheduling requirements to NASA. A request language that a remotely-located customer can use to specify his scheduling requirements to a NASA scheduler, thus automating the customer-scheduler interface, is described. This notation, Flexible Envelope-Request Notation (FERN), allows the user to completely specify his scheduling requirements such as resource usage, temporal constraints, and scheduling preferences and options. The FERN also contains mechanisms for representing schedule and resource availability information, which are used in the inter-scheduler inconsistency resolution process. Additionally, a scheduler is described that can accept these requests, process them, generate schedules, and return schedule and resource availability information to the requester. The Request-Oriented Scheduling Engine (ROSE) was designed to function either as an independent scheduler or as a scheduling element in a network of schedulers. When used in a network of schedulers, each ROSE communicates schedule and resource usage information to other schedulers via the FERN notation, enabling inconsistencies to be resolved between schedulers. Individual ROSE schedules are created by viewing the problem as a constraint satisfaction problem with a heuristically guided search strategy.

Zoch, David↗
DOE OSTI2021

Considerations for Distributed Energy Resource Integration in Puerto Rico: DOE Multi-Lab Grid Modeling Support for Puerto Rico; Analytical Support for Interconnection and IEEE Std 1547-2018 National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Task 3.0)

To ensure the sustainable long-term recovery of Puerto Rico's electric power grid from hurricanes María and Irma and to build capacity to manage future potential natural disasters in the most secure and resilient way, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) convened experts from multiple national laboratories to develop a comprehensive set of data, models, analytic tools, and studies, considering inputs from a wide variety of stakeholder groups, to support technically sound recommendations for Puerto Rico's energy investment decisions. A resilient electric grid is vital to Puerto Rico's security, economy, and way of life, and it will provide the foundation for essential services that people and businesses on the island rely on every day. This report shows progress for a grid modeling task under the DOE-sponsored project that is a collaboration among the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and other national laboratories. In Phase 1 of the multilab effort to support Puerto Rico's recovery, NREL provided the utility company Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) recommendations for a new framework of interconnection standards to accelerate the integration of utility-scale, transmission-connected renewable electrical generation and energy storage that ensure cross-technology compatibility and enable high deployment levels without compromising grid reliably, safety, or security. This Phase 2 report focuses on the interconnection of distributed energy resources (DERs) to the electric distribution system in Puerto Rico. This report is intended to familiarize the reader with Puerto Rico's distribution infrastructure and operational practices and procedures that are relevant to DER interconnection. The report also provides considerations for streamlining the interconnection process given the expected increase in deployments resulting from Puerto Rico's renewable portfolio standard (RPS) goal of 100% renewables by 2050. Accordingly, the report identifies considerations and concerns associated with the increase in intermittent generation, strategies for DER interconnection best practices, and the potential use of the latest technological solutions identified in the latest revision of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1547-2018 interconnection standard.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
NASA NTRS2005

Distributed network scheduling

We investigate missions where communications resources are limited, requiring autonomous planning and execution. Unlike typical networks, spacecraft networks are also suited to automated planning and scheduling because many communications can be planned in advance.

scheduling↗
DOE OSTI2024

Interconnection of Distributed Energy Resources in the Indian Context: IEEE 1547-2018 Adaptation for Locally-Appropriate Grid Code Development

The rapid growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) in India and ambitious renewable energy goals set forth by the Indian government have created the need for appropriate distribution interconnection standards to ensure continued system stability, reliability, and resilience. Existing DER interconnection codes in India, at the time of publishing this report, lack many of the critical grid support functionalities for DERs which may protect bulk system stability, such as event ride-through provisions, frequency droop control, or appropriate trip thresholds given the increasing importance of distributed generation. The formal adoption of IEEE 1547-2018 by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) marks a significant step towards achieving appropriate interconnection of DERs, though the implementation of such a standard must be accompanied with careful consideration of the current codes, regulations, and operation of the Indian power system. Studies on the performance of the functionalities within 1547-2018, which properly incorporate local operating conditions, can inform decisions related to the adoption and adaptation of the clauses present in the standard. This report outlines several of these key considerations for stakeholders and provides analyses illustrating the performance of grid support functionalities on typical Indian distribution feeders.

1547↗