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At least 127 records · Page 7

NSTAR Smart Grid Pilot

NSTAR Electric & Gas Corporation (“the Company”, or “NSTAR”) developed and implemented a Smart Grid pilot program beginning in 2010 to demonstrate the viability of leveraging existing automated meter reading (“AMR”) deployments to provide much of the Smart Grid functionality of advanced metering infrastructure (“AMI”), but without the large capital investment that AMI rollouts typically entail. In particular, a central objective of the Smart Energy Pilot was to enable residential dynamic pricing (time-of-use “TOU” and critical peak rates and rebates) and two-way direct load control (“DLC”) by continually capturing AMR meter data transmissions and communicating through customer-sited broadband connections in conjunction with a standards-based home area network (“HAN”). The pilot was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (“DOE”) through the Smart Grid Demonstration program. NSTAR was very pleased to not only receive the funding support from DOE, but the guidance and support of the DOE throughout the pilot. NSTAR is also pleased to report to the DOE that it was able to execute and deliver a successful pilot on time and on budget. NSTAR looks for future opportunities to work with the DOE and others in future smart grid projects.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Scalability and Effectiveness of Smart Charge Management

The rise in electric vehicle (EV) adoption presents growing challenges for power grids, particularly from simultaneous residential charging, which can cause voltage fluctuations and increase feeder peak loads. Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), with support from the U.S. Department of Energy, initiated a pilot program to evaluate managed residential EV charging through Smart Charge Management (SCM). This study analyzes real-world charging behavior data from the pilot and feeder-level base loads from BGE to simulate residential charging scenarios through 2035 across the Washington, DC–Baltimore region. Grid impacts under unmanaged charging are compared to three SCM strategies: TOU-immediate, TOU-distributed, and Load Balancing. Results show that the magnitude of peak reduction is highly feeder-dependent. Some feeders achieve reductions of more than 40% at high enrollment levels, while others show improvements closer to 10–15%. This heterogeneity reflects differences in baseline feeder load shapes, EV penetration, and plug-in behavior across customers. Results also highlight trade-offs between shifting load away from peak periods and minimizing secondary demand peaks, offering practical insights for future utility program design.

Electric vehicle↗

Second Line of Defense Spares Program

During Fiscal Year 2012, a team from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) conducted an assessment and analysis of the Second Line of Defense (SLD) Sustainability spare parts program. Spare parts management touches many aspects of the SLD Sustainability Program including contracting and integration of Local Maintenance Providers (LMP), equipment vendors, analyses and metrics on program performance, system state of health, and maintenance practices. Standardized spares management will provide better data for decisions during site transition phase and will facilitate transition to host country sustainability ownership. The effort was coordinated with related SLD Sustainability Program initiatives, including a configuration items baselining initiative, a metrics initiative, and a maintenance initiative. The spares study has also led to pilot programs for sourcing alternatives that include regional intermediate inventories and partnering agreements that leverage existing supply chains. Many partners from the SLD Sustainability program contributed to and were consulted in the course of the study. This document provides a description of the findings, recommendations, and implemented solutions that have resulted from the study.

Henderson, Dale L.↗

The role of pilots

The need for detailed specifications is addressed. Candidates for standardization include hardware interfaces, communication protocols, and data exchange services. Atmosphere, Ocean, and Resource pilot programs, utilization of current techniques and technologies in the use and exchange of data and to facilitate access to data are discussed. Pilot objectives aim to: (1) demonstrate the use of advanced technologies, (2) provide a test bed environment for data handling technique evaluation, (3) evolve requirements and capabilities, and (4) document validated methodologies as standards and guidelines for data systems planning use. A user oriented catalog system, data set management, a network communication system, and a user interface are also discussed.

Gary, J. P.↗

Assessing Interpersonal and Communication Skills in Radiation Oncology Residents: A Pilot Standardized Patient Program

Purpose: There is a lack of data for the structured development and evaluation of communication skills in radiation oncology residency training programs. Effective communication skills are increasingly emphasized by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and are critical for a successful clinical practice. We present the design of a novel, pilot standardized patient (SP) program and the evaluation of communication skills among radiation oncology residents. Methods and Materials: Two case scenarios were developed to challenge residents in the delivery of “bad news” to patients: one scenario regarding treatment failure and the other regarding change in treatment plan. Eleven radiation oncology residents paired with 6 faculty participated in this pilot program. Each encounter was scored by the SPs, observing faculty, and residents themselves based on the Kalamazoo guidelines. Results: Overall resident performance ratings were “good” to “excellent,” with faculty assigning statistically significant higher scores and residents assigning lower scores. We found inconsistent inter rater agreement among faculty, residents, and SPs. SP feedback was also valuable in identifying areas of improvement, including more collaborative decision making and less use of medical jargon. Conclusions: The program was well received by residents and faculty and regarded as a valuable educational experience that could be used as an annual feedback tool. Poor inter rater agreement suggests a need for residents and faculty physicians to better calibrate their evaluations to true patient perceptions. High scores from faculty members substantiate the concern that resident evaluations are generally positive and nondiscriminating. Faculty should be encouraged to provide honest and critical feedback to hone residents' interpersonal skills.

62 RADIOLOGY AND NUCLEAR MEDICINE↗

Clean Energy Works Oregon (Final Technical Report)

In April 2010, the City of Portland received a $20 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy, as part of the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program. This award was appropriated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), passed by President Obama in 2009. DOE’s program became known as the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program (BBNP). The BBNP grant objectives directed the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) as the primary grantee to expand the BPS-led pilot program, Clean Energy Works Portland, into Clean Energy Works Oregon (CEWO), with the mission to deliver thousands of home energy retrofits, create jobs, save energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.The Final Technical Report explores the successes and lessons learned from the first 3 years of program implementation.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Potential Benefits of Vehicle-to-Grid Technology in California: High Value for Capabilities Beyond One-Way Managed Charging

With Electric Vehicles (EVs) Rapidly becoming more popular, combined with a need for flexible energy storage resources in the electric grid, the development of vehiclegrid integration (VGI) technology has taken on a new urgency. VGI encompasses any technology that helps EVs better integrate with the grid, including management of charging and control of bidirectional charging and discharging. The habit of managing the one-directional flow of power from the grid to vehicles (V1G) is currently being rolled out across California and in many places where EVs have become popular. V1G programs in California include San Diego Gas and Electric's Power Your Drive, EV-specific retail tariffs from Southern California Edison, and the Charge Forward smart charging pilot program from Pacific Gas and Electric in collaboration with automaker BMW.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Methods for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Programs to Train Pilot Monitoring

This report provides a compendium of methods for evaluation of training programs. It addresses training programs for developing pilot monitoring skills and has a focus on monitoring flight path management. It presents the Sensemaking Model of Monitoring as a framework for organizing the targets of training, and thus also the types of change in performance useful for assessing program effectiveness. It provides guidance for designing program evaluations, which can be tailored to address the specific monitoring topics or content for an application to fleet or airline needs.

monitoring↗

Leveraging a Southern California Energy Innovation Cluster to Pilot and Validate Emerging Energy Technologies

The EPIC Pilot Program, led by the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), was designed to help early-stage clean technology startups accelerate technical validation, investment readiness, and market entry. The project focused on supporting startups in designing and deploying small-scale pilots with the guidance of EPIC Partners, a network of regional stakeholders in the Southern California energy ecosystem, including but not limited to: the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the California Energy Commission (CEC), Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), and Edison International, among others. Through mentorship, funding, and site access for technology deployments, the program provided a structured pathway for startups to test and refine their technologies in real-world settings.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Telematics and Data Science: Informing Energy-Efficient Mobility: October 25, 2016 - October 31, 2017

The University of Connecticut (UCONN) is exploring the possibility of adding electric vehicles (EVs) - including battery electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), or both-to its vehicle fleet. This report presents results of the UCONN fleet EV Suitability pilot program and offers recommendations for transitioning fleet vehicles to EVs as well as implementing adequate charging infrastructure.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Cybersecurity for the Operational Technology Environment (CyOTE) (Final Technical Report)

Electric grids have historically been susceptible to both physical attacks and environmental hazards but the implementation of smart grids, remote management, and self-healing networks, has now made the grid vulnerable to cyber attacks. To address risks introduced by routable connectivity, utilities must establish dynamic solutions to identify, protect, detect, respond to, and recover from cyber security threats and vulnerabilities. In response to the evolving threat landscape U.S. Department of Energy-Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (DOE CESER) initiated the Cybersecurity for the OT Environment (CyOTE) pilot program, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) effort designed to leverage U.S. intelligence capabilities to prevent, detect, or mitigate a cyber attack on utility operational technology (OT) networks. As part of the CyOTE pilot, The Southern Company (Southern Company or Southern) researched, evaluated and deployed emerging Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) technologies and cyber security monitoring architectures to provide previously unrealized network visibility and situational awareness through deep packet inspection and data analytics. This Final Scientific/Technical Report documents the objectives, methodology, lessons learned, and results of Southern Company’s participation in the CyOTE pilot from December 2018 to September 2023.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG)- Better Buildings Neighborhood Program Final Report

The original BetterBuildings for Greensboro grant program included an outreach campaign to inform 100% of the Greensboro community about the benefits of reducing energy use; a plan to reduce energy consumption in at least 34% of the homes and 10% of the other buildings in the east Greensboro target area; and a plan to create and retain jobs in the energy conservation industry. Under the original program structure the City of Greensboro planned to partner with local and regional lenders to create a diversified portfolio of loan products to meet the needs of various income levels and building types. All participants would participate in the loan programs as a method of meeting the program’s 5 to1 private capital match/leverage requirements. In June 2011 the program was restructured to include partnerships with large commercial and multifamily projects, with these partners providing the greater portion of the required match/leverage. The geographic focus was revised to include reducing energy consumption across the entire City of Greensboro, targeting neighborhoods with high concentrations of low-moderate income households and aged housing stock. The community outreach component used a neighborhood-based approach to train community residents and volunteers to conduct door-to-door neighborhood sweeps; delivered high quality information on available program resources; helped residents to evaluate alternative energy efficiency measures and alternative financing sources; assisted with contractor selections and monitoring/evaluation of work; coordinated activities with BetterBuildings program partners; and collected data required by the Department of Energy. Additionally, HERO (Home Energy Response Officers) delivered intro packages (energy efficiency information and products) to thousands of households at the initial point of contact. A pilot program (Early Adopters) was offered from March 1, 2011 through June 30, 2011. The Early Adopters program was designed to offer immediate assistance to property owners ready and able to make their homes more energy efficient, by offering a rebate on their energy assessment and on the cost of upgrades installed. Eligible energy efficient upgrades were inclusive of basic level insulating and weather-stripping, HVAC system and water heater upgrades, to whole home upgrades that include the replacement of windows, doors and appliances. Renewable energy systems such as solar hot water systems were also eligible for the rebate program.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Building Blocks for Secure and Prosperous Defense Critical Supply Chains: A Case Study from Microelectronics

Securing defense-critical supply chains, built on resilient and sustainable microelectronics fabrication and deployment, is a national imperative and one that requires an investment in basic and applied research, development, and deployment into industries in (and out of) the Defense Industrial Base (DIB). Critical next steps include the development of pilots for revolutionary concepts in a new formal verification model and the Cyber-Physical Passport (CPP) concept for chain of custody. Critical infrastructure leadership should take action with a sense of urgency. Working in conjunction with the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering should establish pilot programs with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the service labs to build and test both concepts in legacy and new system development.. Additionally, the Pentagon may be aware that an existing Manufacturing Innovation Institute is piloting, with the semiconductor industry, cyber innovations to provide verifiable security properties and guarantees of physical functions to build a more cyber secure, resilient and efficient micro-electronics supply chain.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Evaluation of ball and roller bearings restored by grinding

A joint program was undertaken to restore by grinding those rolling-element bearings which are currently being discarded at aircraft engine and transmission overhaul. Three bearing types were selected from the UH-1 helicopter engine (T-53) and transmission for the pilot program. Groups of each of these bearings were visually and dimensionally inspected for suitability for restoration. A total of 250 bearings were restored by grinding. Of this number, 30 bearings from each type were endurance tested to a TBO of 1600 hours. No bearing failures occurred related to the restoration by grinding process. The two bearing failures which occurred were due to defective rolling elements and were typical of those which may occur in new bearings. The restorable component yield to the three groups was in excess of 90 percent.

Parker, R. J.↗

Rewarding Grid-Friendly Behavior: Estimating the Potential Bill Reduction and Load Shifting Benefits of Dynamic Prices

Shifting electric load from times of peak demand can be a key strategy to slow price growth as reducing peak demand avoids the cost of upgrading generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. Utilities are releasing time-varying prices, such as time of use rates or dynamic prices, to incentivize grid-friendly load shifting. New dynamic price programs provide insight into the true cost of operating electricity grids and the potential economic benefits of load shifting. Program developers and device manufacturers need to understand the economic opportunities in terms of 1) the variation in prices across hours, days, and seasons; 2) the change in utility bills for customers who don’t shift load; and 3) the potential load shifted and economic value of different technologies if manufacturers or aggregators deploy price-responsive controls. This paper estimates possible impacts of dynamic price adoption and load shifting controls if customers paid the dynamic rate from one pilot program. Statistical analysis of historical prices identified annual and seasonal metrics as well as representative price curves for each circuit in the pilot. Simulations for residential technologies with price-responsive controls including unitary heat pump water heaters, central multifamily heat pump water heaters, heating & cooling + storage systems, and pool pumps estimated the potential impacts of highly dynamic prices both with and without load shifting controls. Results showed the potential to reduce electricity costs on representative days by 42-94% and reduce consumption during times of high electricity prices by 63-100% compared to baseline operation for those flex-friendly devices.

Grant, Peter↗

Northeast Clean Energy Application Center

From October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2013 (“contract period”), the Northeast Clean Energy Application Center (“NE-CEAC”) worked in New York and New England (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine) to create a more robust market for the deployment of clean energy technologies (CETs) including combined heat and power (CHP), district energy systems (DES), and waste heat recovery (WHR) systems through the provision of technical assistance, education and outreach, and strategic market analysis and support for decision-makers. CHP, DES, and WHR can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce electrical and thermal energy costs, and provide more reliable energy for users throughout the United States. The NE-CEAC’s efforts in the provision of technical assistance, education and outreach, and strategic market analysis and support for decision-makers helped advance the market for CETs in the Northeast thereby helping the region move towards the following outcomes: Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and criteria pollutants; Improvements in energy efficiency resulting in lower costs of doing business; Productivity gains in industry and efficiency gains in buildings; Lower regional energy costs; Strengthened energy security; Enhanced consumer choice; Reduced price risks for end-users; and Economic development effects keeping more jobs and more income in our regional economy Over the contract period, NE-CEAC provided technical assistance to approximately 56 different potential end-users that were interested in CHP and other CETs for their facility or facilities. Of these 56 potential end-users, five new CHP projects totaling over 60 MW of install capacity became operational during the contract period. The NE-CEAC helped host numerous target market workshops, trainings, and webinars; and NE-CEAC staff delivered presentations at many other workshops and conferences. In total, over 60 different workshops, conferences, webinars, and presentation were hosted or delivered during the contract period. The NE-CEAC also produced publically available educational materials such as CHP project profiles. Finally, the NE-CEAC worked closely with the relevant state agencies involved with CHP development. In New York, the NE-CEAC played an important role in securing and maintaining funding for CHP incentive programs administered by the New York State Energy Research Development Authority. NE-CEAC was also involved in the NYC Mayor's Office DG Collaborative. The NECEAC was also named a strategic resource for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s innovative Microgrid Pilot Program.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Mobility Energy Productivity and Equity: E-Bike Impacts for Low-Income Essential Workers in Denver

New mobility technologies such as electrified and shared mobility, combined with polices and incentive programs, are emerging to help address sustainability and equity issues in transportation planning. However, it can be difficult to understand the impacts of novel mobility trends and emerging modes on energy-efficient access. This is owing to a lack of (1) open-source tools enabling rapid data collection, and (2) open-source metrics that consider multimodal, multiactivity access and mobility within the contexts of sustainability and equity. Here, this paper addresses the topic of improving evaluation of transportation modes and incentive programs by integrating an open-source platform for tracking human travel data—the Open Platform for Agile Trip Heuristics (OpenPATH)—with a mobility metric that quantifies the efficiency of a region’s transportation system: Mobility Energy Productivity (MEP). Integration is demonstrated in the context of pilot programs in Colorado, where low-income essential workers were provided with electric bikes (e-bikes). OpenPATH-informed MEP calculations showed that several locations in downtown Denver provided comparable time-, cost-, and energy-efficient access to opportunities using e-bikes compared with driving. Additionally, providing e-bikes to low-income essential workers was found to be meaningful, as they utilized e-bikes the most to commute, despite driving still being their most utilized mode and the mode with highest MEP scores in Denver. We show how data collected from open-source tools coupled with robust metrics such as MEP can help evaluate the impacts of emerging mobility options. This could support developing policies to incentivize novel modes to achieve greater levels of sustainable, equitable, and efficient access.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Nuclear Enterprise Science & Technology (NEST) [Slides]

The NEST Certificate Program is designed to provide students with the skills and experience to qualify for entry-level positions in nuclear facilities as Fissile Material Handler and/or Glovebox Operator. The program goal is to provide for a technically qualified workforce who can execute a variety of programmatic work in modern nuclear materials handling and processing facilities. The program is designed to be completed in a minimum of 1 year (2 semesters) of university level courses (30 credit hours). A certificate will be offered and awarded through the University of New Mexico – Los Alamos (UNM-LA). NEST is unique in that it is an immersive education program. The NNSA-required training for nuclear material handlers and fissionable material handlers has been cross-walked with the educational Core Curricula. Academic content will be delivered that provides background scientific and engineering understanding of the fundamental concepts behind this training. It will be offered as a Pilot Program to an incumbent cohort to ensure that the Certificate meets programmatic needs. NEST is modelled after a Wharton County Junior College (Texas) program to attract and produce nuclear reactor operators.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗