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At least 127 records · Page 7

Assessing the behavioral realism of energy system models in light of the consumer adoption literature

Effective policymaking to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions demands an understanding of the complex drivers of, and barriers to, consumer adoption behavior via behaviorally realistic energy system models. Existing models tend to oversimplify by focusing on homogenized financial factors while neglecting consumer heterogeneity and non-monetary influences. This study develops and applies a comprehensive framework for evaluating the behavioral realism of consumer adoption models, informed by the adoption literature. It introduces a typology for factors influencing low-carbon technology adoption decisions: monetary and non-monetary factors relating to household characteristics, psychology, technological attributes, and contextual conditions. Next, reviews of the consumer adoption and decision-making literature identify the most influential adoption factor categories for distributed solar photovoltaics, electric vehicles, and air-source heat pumps. Finally, the extent to which a selection of energy system models accounts for these adoption factors is assessed. Existing models predominantly emphasize the economic aspects of technology, which are generally identified as the most important factors. Where the models fall short — in considering moderately important factor categories — sector-specific and agent-based models can offer more behaviorally realistic insights. This study sheds light on which types of factors are most important for consumer adoption decisions and investigates how well current models rise to the challenge of behavioral realism. The end-to-end analysis presented enables internally consistent comparisons across models and energy technologies. This research advances timely conversations on consumer adoption. It could inform more behaviorally realistic energy system modeling, and thereby more effective decarbonization policymaking.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Projecting Recent Advancements in Battery Technology to Next–Generation Electric Vehicles

Electric vehicles (EVs) have seen rapid growth in adoption over the last several years. Advancements to increase battery life and performance, policy shifts, and high charging rate are expected to further accelerate the development of next generation of EVs. Battery improvements continue to emerge, enabling increased driving range, total distance driven over the life of vehicles, and ability to charge at high rates. Herein, an analysis framework to provide insights into inclusive design metrics, such as specific energy of batteries, energy consumption of vehicles, and charging power infrastructure development, is developed. Various cell-level fast charge protocols to realistic battery designs to understand the infrastructure needs associated with achieving range replacement of 32.25 km min -1 (20 mi min -1 ) are also scaled. Additionally, by calculating scaled power and peak to average power ratio, it is found that there needs to be more distinct alignment between the research efforts focused at the cell level and what is being developed for EV charging infrastructure needs. Finally, impact of high direct current voltage architecture in next-generation EVs is discussed. The findings in this work provide an insight into recent advancements in battery technology to next-generation EVs.

20 mi/min↗

Korean Power System Challenges and Opportunities, Priorities for Swift and Successful Clean Energy Deployment at Scale

With South Korea’s electricity demand expected to grow 30% by 2035, transitioning to clean energy resources will be critical in reducing the electric sector emissions and achieving national climate goals. Rapid technological improvements can help keep costs low and maintain grid reliability, if Korea’s government takes a coordinated approach to the clean energy transition. This policy brief identifies key barriers to Korea’s shift toward clean energy, based on the authors’ companion report (A Clean Energy Korea by 2035: Transitioning to 80% Carbon-Free Electricity Generation ), interviews with experts, and the most recent data and literature. It then explores policy solutions for overcoming these technological, economic, and institutional barriers, and suggests market transformation strategies to speed the adoption of clean energy technologies. Amid ongoing cost and technological improvements in wind, solar, and energy storage, advancing this report’s recommended policy actions with maximum coordination among government officials can meaningfully accelerate Korea’s clean energy transition.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

The State of Electric Vehicle Adoption in Colorado for Multifamily versus Single-Family Dwellings: A Methodology for Quantifying Deviation from Parity

Given that electric vehicle adoption is well underway, the spatial distribution of electric vehicle owners by housing type—single-family or multifamily— shows whether parity (equal adoption rates) is being achieved or to what extent adoption by housing type is over or undersaturated (i.e., over- or under-adoption). We use a proprietary dataset of vehicle registrations with modeled housing type to analyze saturation ratios in Colorado in 2022. We found significant single-family oversaturation and multifamily undersaturation in 14% and 23% of ZIP codes, respectively, suggesting Colorado can still mitigate disparities in electric vehicle adoption by housing type through accessible vehicles and charging.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Residential Solar-Adopter Income and Demographic Trends: November 2022 Update [Slides]

The report describes income, demographic, and other socio-economic trends among U.S. residential rooftop solar adopters. The report is based on address-level data for roughly 2.8 million residential rooftop solar systems installed through 2021, representing 86% of all U.S. systems. With its unique size, geographic scope, and level of detail, this report is intended to serve as a foundational reference document for policy-makers, industry stakeholders, and researchers. Key findings include the following: -Median solar adopter income was about $\$110$k/year in 2021, compared to a U.S. median of about $\$63$k/year for all households and $\$79$k/year for all owner-occupied households -The degree of income skew varies significantly across all states, but all states exhibit some positive income skew, with median solar-adopter incomes ranging from 131-168% of the respective county-median income for all households -Notwithstanding the fact that solar adopter incomes skew high, a substantial share of adopters could be considered low-to-moderate income (LMI), with 22% of all 2021 adopters earning less than 80% of area median income, and an additional 21% between 80% and 120% of area median income. -Solar-adopter incomes are declining over time, with median incomes dropping from $\$129$k in 2010 to $\$110$k in 2021, as adoption becomes more proportionately distributed across the population and has started to broaden into low- and middle-income states since 2016. -Solar-adopter incomes are consistently higher for systems paired with battery storage, for host-owned systems, and for systems installed on single-family homes; higher income adopters also consistently install larger systems. -Solar adopters tend to live in Census Tracts not identified as “disadvantaged communities” (using the U.S. Department of Energy’s interim definitions developed March 2022), making up 11% of adopters compared to 18% of U.S. households. -Compared to the broader population, solar adopters tend to: identify as Non-Hispanic White, be primarily English-speaking, have higher education levels, be middle-aged, work in business and finance-related occupations, and live in higher-value homes In conjunction with the report, Berkeley Lab has published an updated accompanying set of online data visualizations that allow users to further explore the underlying data. Berkeley Lab is also offering related analytical support to states, local agencies, and other organizations on issues related to solar adoption among low-to-moderate income households; requests for analytical support may be submitted through this online form.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗

Interconnection Standards for Combined Heat and Power (CHP) - State Standards that Impact Interconnection to the Electric Distribution Grid

This Issue Brief examines state interconnection policies that apply to CHP throughout the United States. It discusses barriers to CHP interconnection and describes elements of effective interconnection standards. The information in this document is intended to help inform state regulators, policy makers, utility personnel, electricity customers, and other stakeholders about the current status of CHP interconnection requirements, and how the interconnection process could be improved to accelerate the adoption of CHP.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Space Power

For almost 50 years, the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) has developed solar cells to power satellites and spacecraft. Today, NLR is working to improve the durability, performance, and affordability of several photovoltaic (PV) materials for space and power beaming applications. The lab works closely with partners to ensure this research can be quickly and widely adopted.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

A game-theoretic approach to nuclear fuel cycle transition analysis under uncertainty

We present a novel methodology for optimizing nuclear fuel cycle transitions that incorporates a game-theoretic approach and captures interactions among multiple decision makers. The methodology is demonstrated using a two-person sequential game with uncertainty, where the two players represent a policy maker and an electric utility company, though the method generalizes to any number and type of individual decision making entities. Coupled with a sophisticated nuclear fuel cycle simulator, rich transition scenarios may be analyzed to identify robust transition strategies. These strategies explicitly treat uncertainties using a stochastic programming approach, devising optimal near-term hedging strategies that simultaneously consider all possible states of the world, maintaining flexibility to allow for intelligent recourse decisions once uncertainties are resolved. In the demonstration game, reactor technology and fuel cycle scheme adopted by the electric utility are shown to depend on both the policy maker’s decisions and the distributions over uncertain technological and economic outcomes.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Machine-Learning-Based Mapping and Modeling of Solar Energy with Ultra-High Spatiotemporal Granularity

Despite the rapid growth of solar energy, we still lack a dynamic, high-fidelity database that tracks the spatiotemporal variations of solar PVs and their associated infrastructures across different places at a spatially resolved scale. The absence of such data presents a barrier to various applications such as solar PV growth projection, solar energy integration, solar incentive design, and climate risk assessment. In this project, we aim to bridge this gap by developing AI-based algorithms to extract granular information about solar PV installations and their associated infrastructures (i.e., distribution grids) from widely available unstructured data like remote sensing images and street views. As a result, we have built the Solar Energy Atlas, a fine-grained, large-scale geospatial overlay of distributed solar PVs and distribution grids. On top of it, we have advanced the understanding of solar adoption and distribution grid vulnerability to climate-induced extremes. Our major contributions can be summarized as follow: (1) By developing new AI algorithms, we have built the most comprehensive solar PV spatiotemporal database covering the entire US. This is the first time we obtained the exact GPS locations, size, subtype, and installation year information for rooftop solar PVs across the US. This database can be used for solar PV growth projection, solar energy integration, solar energy policy analysis and design, and spatially-resolved climate risk assessment. (2) Leveraging this database, we have uncovered the socioeconomic driving factors that are correlated with earlier onset of solar adoption and higher saturated adoption levels. We have identified the heterogeneity in the effects of different types of financial incentives on solar adoption and provided implications for tailoring incentive design based on local income levels to promote equitable solar adoption. (3) We have developed a distribution grid GIS mapping algorithm which can obtain granular geospatial and topology information about distribution grids using multi-modal open data, reducing the dependency on hard-to-obtain smart meter data of conventional approaches. It shows effectiveness in both the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa. Using this algorithm, we have uncovered the non-uniform vulnerability of distribution grids to wildfires in California in the aspects of undergrounding protection and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) preparedness. This has provided important implications for improving the affordability and equity of grid adaptation approaches. (3) We have made our produced database publicly available and provided user-friendly interface to enable various stakeholders and the general public to interact with the data. We have also integrated the produced data into the Data Commons platform to enable the public to access the data and correlate it with other location-specific characteristics simply using natural language as queries. The impact of our project is three-fold: (1) New algorithms for mapping solar PVs and distribution grids across space and time, which are open source to facilitate researchers and industry; (2) New databases of solar PVs and distribution grids that have been made publicly available for engineering, social, and policy applications; (3) New understandings and actionable insights on the potential approaches to promoting solar adoption and reducing energy infrastructure vulnerabilities. In this report, we start by discussing the project background and motivation (section 5), followed by the overview of project objectives (section 6). Results and discussion for each task are presented in section 7. Significant accomplishments are summarized in section 8. This report will be concluded by discussing the paths forwards (section 9), products (section 10), and team roles (section 11).

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Residential Solar-Adopter Income and Demographic Trends: 2023 Update [Slides]

The report describes income, demographic, and other socio-economic trends among U.S. residential rooftop solar adopters. The report is based on address-level data for roughly 3.4 million residential rooftop solar systems installed through 2022, representing 86% of all U.S. systems. With its unique size, geographic scope, and level of detail, this report is intended to serve as a foundational reference document for policy-makers, industry stakeholders, and researchers. Key findings include the following: (1) Median solar adopter income was about $\$117$k/year in 2022, compared to a U.S. median of about $\$69$k/year for all households and $\$86$k/year for all owner-occupied households; (2) The degree of income skew varies significantly across all states, but all exhibit some positive income skew relative to all households in the state, with median solar-adopter incomes ranging from 108-180% of the respective state-median income for all households; (3) Roughly 45% of solar adopters in 2022 had incomes below 120% of their area median income (AMI), a threshold sometimes used to define “low-and-moderate income” (or LMI), while 23% were below 80% of AMI, often used to define “low-income”; (4) Solar adoption continues to shift toward less affluent households, with the median current income of solar adopters dropping from $\$140$k for households that installed systems in 2010 to $\$117$k in 2022; (5) PV systems installed in 2022 by households earning less than $50k had a median size of 6.1 kW, 34% were third-party owned, and 5% included battery storage, compared to corresponding values of 7.6%, 17%, and 15% for households earning more than 200 dollars k; and (6) Compared to all households in their respective state, solar adopters tend to be negligibly more rural; have higher home values; and are more likely to be college educated, identify as non-Hispanic white, live outside a disadvantaged community (DAC), be middle-aged, work in a business or financial occupation, and own a single-family home In conjunction with the report, Berkeley Lab has published an updated accompanying set of online data visualizations that allow users to further explore the underlying data. Berkeley Lab is also offering related analytical support to states, local agencies, and other organizations on issues related to solar adoption among low-to-moderate income households.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Electric Vehicle Adoption in Illinois

Over 1.3 million plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) have been sold in the United States since 2010 when the first Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf vehicles came on the market. Currently, electric vehicles account for about 2% of monthly light-duty vehicle (LDV) sales. More than 40 different electric vehicle models are actively being marketed, and most of these are LDVs. Over the last few years, automakers have brought more models, with varying mileage ranges, to the market, including medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks and buses. Government agencies at the federal, regional, and state levels, as well as utilities across the United States, have provided financial and non-financial incentives to promote electric vehicle adoption and charging infrastructure deployment. Argonne National Laboratory, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, has developed tools and collected data to quantify the energy, economic, and environmental benefits of electric vehicles. This project has three objectives. First, we summarize the policies and other actions of the federal government, various states/regions, and utilities to promote PEV adoption, and evaluate their relative effectiveness based on a review of the literature. Second, we identify possible PEV adoption paths or scenarios that would result in PEVs making up 15% of all on-road vehicles in Illinois, and we quantify the resulting impacts on petroleum consumption and electricity demand. We also summarize the possible reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) and criteria pollutant emissions due to PEV adoption. The PEV scenarios include private and public adoption of electric cars, light trucks (e.g., sports utility vehicles [SUVs], vans, pickups), medium-duty vehicles (MDVs), and heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs). Third, we estimate hourly charging loads of light-duty PEVs in 2030 associated with these scenarios, incorporating assumptions about vehicle electric range, efficiency, and travel behavior.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Electric Vehicle Charging for Residential and Commercial Energy Codes: Technical Brief

Numerous studies show that sales of electric vehicles (EVs) have grown consistently over recent years in the U.S. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated 3 million EVs were on the road in 2022, and the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) forecasts a total of 26.4 million EVs on the road by 2030. Based on this forecast, EEI projects the need for an additional 12.9 million EV charge ports by 2030. If EV charging infrastructure fails to keep pace with sales of EVs it could result in consumers stranded without options to power their vehicles. EVs are capable of providing substantial benefits to the consumers. EVs are less expensive to operate than conventional internal combustion engine vehicles, have lower maintenance costs, and have the convenience of fueling (charging) at home or work. Studies conducted in California show that costs associated with installing EV charging infrastructure can be substantially more expensive for retrofit scenarios compared to new construction, making inclusion of EV infrastructure in new construction codes a cost-effective policy option to increase infrastructure to meet growing demands. PNNL tracks adoption of mandatory EV provisions across the U.S. As of December 20, 2024, 12 states (California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Vermont) and 53 local governments have added EV provisions to their building codes, local ordinances and zoning requirements. Originally published in 2022, this tech brief has been revised to align with recent model energy code committee discussions and published EV infrastructure code language. This technical brief summarizes market trends, costs and benefits, and provides sample code language for EV charging infrastructure for consideration to be included in model codes, such as the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1, as well as directly by states and local governments in their building codes. The technical brief summarizes related efforts undertaken by states and local governments, and builds upon language considered during the 2021 and 2024 IECC development cycles.

2021 IECC↗

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Wireless Test Beds for Over the Air (OTA) experimentation

Invited Keynote talk that contains material from talks already presented by INL wireless team & Wireless Security Institute in various forums. VISION: Advance 5G national leadership and accelerate the secure adoption of 5G and beyond technology. MISSION: Provide best in class policy and decision data, security evaluation, engineering support, and technology development enabling government and industry to maximize the benefits of 5G and beyond technology. END STATE: Broad, diversely funded RDD&D portfolio, INL established as National Authority on Wireless Security.

5G↗

Dynamic Role-Based Access Control Policy for Smart Grid Applications: An Offline Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach

Role-based access control (RBAC) is adopted in the information and communication technology domain for authentication purposes. However, due to a very large number of entities within organizational access control (AC) systems, static RBAC management can be inefficient, costly, and can lead to cybersecurity threats. In this paper, a novel hybrid RBAC model is proposed, based on the principles of offline deep reinforcement learning (RL) and Bayesian belief networks. The considered framework utilizes a fully offline RL agent, which models the behavioral history of users as a Bayesian belief-based trust indicator. Thus, the initial static RBAC policy is improved in a dynamic manner through off-policy learning while guaranteeing compliance of the internal users with the security rules of the system. By deploying our implementation within the smart grid domain and specifically within a Distributed Energy Resources (DER) ecosystem, we provide an end-to-end proof of concept of our model. Finally, detailed analysis and evaluation regarding the offline training phase of the RL agent are provided, while the online deployment of the hybrid RL-based RBAC model into the DER ecosystem highlights its key operation features and salient benefits over traditional RBAC models.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Modeling Distributed Generation in California

In support of analysis for the biennial Integrated Energy Policy Report, the California Energy Commission and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have partnered to study the growth of distributed energy resources in California. This study involves the use of National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Distributed Generation Market Demand model, available at https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/dgen/, to project statewide adoption of distributed photovoltaics and paired storage. Key outcomes of the collaboration include: • Improved representation of California building stock, load profiles, historical adoption, and tariffs, including the net billing tariff, in the dGen model; • Trained CEC staff members to use and adapt the dGen model for their specific needs; • Developed a methodology for representing emerging consumer segments to potentially adopt distributed energy resources, including low-income, multifamily, and renter-occupied buildings; • Forecasted solar photovoltaic and paired storage growth in California using a common set of modeling parameters. This report describes the multiyear effort, which includes a discussion of: • Methodology and data employed in adapting the Distributed Generation Market Demand model for California to forecast solar photovoltaic and storage statewide through 2040; • Steps taken to modify the base model to forecast solar photovoltaic adoption in emerging market segments such as multifamily or renter-occupied homes or both; • Future enhancements of the model.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

An industrial policy framework for transforming energy and emissions intensive industries towards zero emissions

The target of zero emissions sets a new standard for industry and industrial policy. Industrial policy in the twenty-first century must aim to achieve zero emissions in the energy and emissions intensive industries. Sectors such as steel, cement, and chemicals have so far largely been sheltered from the effects of climate policy. A major shift is needed, from contemporary industrial policy that mainly protects industry to policy strategies that transform the industry. For this purpose, we draw on a wide range of literatures including engineering, economics, policy, governance, and innovation studies to propose a comprehensive industrial policy framework. The policy framework relies on six pillars: directionality, knowledge creation and innovation, creating and reshaping markets, building capacity for governance and change, international coherence, and sensitivity to socio-economic implications of phase-outs. Complementary solutions relying on technological, organizational, and behavioural change must be pursued in parallel and throughout whole value chains. Current policy is limited to supporting mainly some options, e.g. energy efficiency and recycling, with some regions also adopting carbon pricing, although most often exempting the energy and emissions intensive industries. An extended range of options, such as demand management, materials efficiency, and electrification, must also be pursued to reach zero emissions. New policy research and evaluation approaches are needed to support and assess progress as these industries have hitherto largely been overlooked in domestic climate policy as well as international negotiations.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Electric Vehicle Managed Charging: Estimating the Potential Bulk Power System Value

With more and more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road, the grid of the future can greatly benefit from EV managed charging, which coordinates charging based on people's travel needs, electricity supply, and grid conditions. The added flexibility could be especially valuable for the bulk power system as it transitions to high shares of variable renewable generation, like wind and solar. Numerous studies have estimated the potential value of EV managed charging. In this study, NREL leveraged more detailed modeling of EV adoption, use, charging, and bulk power system operations to understand the potential value. Unique to this study, NREL modeled different charging flexibility types and dispatch mechanisms - as well as participation rates among drivers in having their EV charging managed - starting from vehicle-specific descriptions of charging flexibility. The study is based on a passenger light-duty vehicle adoption scenario with 100% EV sales by 2035 and a New England power system in 2038 with 84% clean generation and 26% of the electric load met by net imports. The 2038 New England light-duty vehicle feet is modeled as 45% electric.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Plug-in electric vehicles in China and the USA: a technology and market comparison

As the top two plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) markets in the world, China and the United States of America (USA) have developed different market structures that are influenced by government policies, test procedures, customer acceptance, and vehicle performance. There are differences in PEV test procedures and vehicle class definitions as well. This paper quantifies such differences and compares PEV characteristics and markets in the two countries using actual data collected over several years. First, although China surpasses the USA in annual PEV production because of generous PEV policies and higher charging infrastructure availability, the USA has a higher PEV adoption rate per capita (2.3 versus 0.81 per 1000 people at the end of 2017). Second, the most popular vehicle classes are A00 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in China but long-range mid-size BEVs in the USA. Moreover, China's electric and plug-in hybrid sport utility vehicle market is growing quickly. Third, the electricity consumption rated under Chinese test procedures is 20%-40% lower than that rated under US procedures. The sales-weighted electricity consumption of an average BEV in China is 23% lower than that in the USA because of larger proportions of small and micro BEVs in China. Fourth, PEV battery cost in the two countries is currently close to $210-$220 kWh. Finally, China has higher numbers of charging infrastructure, and the ratio of PEVs to public chargers is 9.0 in China versus 17.9 in the USA at the end of 2018.

China EV market↗