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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 1,261 records · Page 70
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

Fast Determination of Distribution-Connected PV Impacts Using a Variable-Time-Step Quasi-Static Time-Series Approach

The increasing deployment of distribution-connected photovoltaic (DPV) systems requires utilities to complete ever more complex interconnection studies. Relatively simple interconnection study methods worked well for low penetrations of photovoltaic systems, but more complicated quasistatic time-series (QSTS) analysis is required to make better interconnection decisions as DPV penetration levels increase. Tools and methods must be developed to support this type of complex analysis to enable efficient completion of PV impact studies. This paper presents a variable-time-step solver for QSTS analysis that significantly shortens the computational time and effort to complete a detailed analysis of the operation of a distribution circuit with many DPV systems. Specifically, it demonstrates that the proposed variable-time-step solver can reduce the required computational time by as much as 84% without introducing any important errors to metrics, such as the number of voltage regulator tap operations and highest and lowest voltage occurring on the distribution circuit during a 1-yr simulation period. Further improvement in computational speed is possible with the introduction of only modest errors in these metrics, such as a 91% reduction with less than 5% error when predicting voltage regulator operations. Furthermore, an alternate variable time-step method is also shown to perform adequately and shows promise of even greater reductions in simulation runtime.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Quasi-Static Times Series PV Hosting Capacity Methodology and Metrics: Preprint

Distributed photovoltaic systems (DPV) can cause adverse grid impacts, including voltage or thermal violations. The installed capacity at which violations first occur and above which would require system upgrades is called the hosting capacity. Current methods for determining hosting capacity tend to be conservative by either only considering infrequent worst-case snapshots in time and/or only capturing coarse time and spatial resolution. Additionally, current hosting capacity methods do not accurately capture the time-dependence making them unable to capture the behavior of voltage regulating equipment and of some advanced controls mitigations. This can trigger delays from unnecessary engineering analysis or deter solar installations in areas that are actually suitable. We propose a quasi-static-timeseries (QSTS) based PV hosting capacity methodology to address these issues. With this approach, we conduct power flow analysis over the course of a full year, to capture time-varying parameters and control device actions explicitly. We show that this approach can more fully capture grid impacts of DPV than traditional methods.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

High-Penetration PV Integration Handbook for Distribution Engineers

This handbook has been developed as part of a five-year research project which began in 2010. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Southern California Edison (SCE), Quanta Technology, Satcon Technology Corporation, Electrical Distribution Design (EDD), and Clean Power Research (CPR) teamed together to analyze the impacts of high-penetration levels of photovoltaic (PV) systems interconnected onto the SCE distribution system. This project was designed specifically to leverage the experience that SCE and the project team would gain during the significant installation of 500 MW of commercial scale PV systems (1-5 MW typically) starting in 2010 and completing in 2015 within SCE’s service territory through a program approved by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC).

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Use of Traveling Wave Signatures in Medium-Voltage Distribution Systems for Fault Detection and Location

Protection systems are a critical feature for the proper operation of a power grid. Protection systems should be able to quickly detect, identify, locate, and isolate the faults within a time frame that prevents damage to grid components and reduces customer outages. As more inverter-based photovoltaics (PV) are integrated into the grid, phasor domain based protection schemes become more inaccurate due to low levels of fault current from inverters or respond too slowly to accurately identify fault conditions. This points to the need to identify and develop novel protection approaches for distribution systems with high penetration of inverter based PV. The main objective of the project is to develop new time domain-based protection schemes to enable more accurate and faster detection, identification and location of faults in distribution systems and/or microgrids with high penetration of inverter-based PV. Our approach aims to exploit the traveling waves that are generated during a fault or other disturbances in the grid.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Mapping the three-dimensional “x-shaped structure” in models of the Galactic bulge

Numerical simulations have shown that the X-shaped structure in the Milky Way bulge can naturally arise from bar instability and buckling instability. To understand the influence of buckling amplitude on the morphology of the X-shape, we analyze three self-consistent numerical simulations of barred galaxies with different buckling amplitudes (strong, intermediate, and weak). We derive the three-dimensional density using an adaptive kernel smoothing technique. The face-on isodensity surfaces are all elliptical, while in the edge-on view, the morphology of buckled bars transitions with increasing radius from a central boxy core to a peanut bulge and then to an extended, thin bar. Based on these isodensity surfaces at different density levels, we find no clear evidence for a well-defined structure shaped like the letter X. The X-shaped structure is more peanut-like, the visual perception of which is probably enhanced by the pinched inner concave isodensity contours. The peanut bulge can reproduce qualitatively the observed bimodal distributions that were used as evidence for the discovery of the X-shape. The central boxy core is shaped like an oblong tablet, extending ∼500 pc above and below the Galactic plane (|b|∼4{sup ∘}). From the solar perspective, lines of sight passing through the central boxy core do not show bimodal distributions. This generally agrees with the observations that double peaks merge at |b| ∼ 4°–5° from the Galactic plane, indicating the presence of a possibly similar structure in the Galactic bulge.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

R3IT, Rapid Rural Resilient Interconnection Toolkit, Final Technical Report

Utilities nationwide are beginning to experience multiple solar interconnection requests per day. This request volume will soon overwhelm utility engineers, especially at smaller utilities which serve the majority of the landmass of the United States. In this project, we developed open-source software tool that automates the interconnection approval process and removes 80% of the time required to approve an interconnection and hence allow more solar to be quickly and safely integrated with the grid. This software is accompanied by a guidebook detailing interconnection best practices and utility lessons learned. Competing solar interconnection software is extremely expensive at ten times the cost of typical distribution engineering tools, it’s closed source which makes it hard to integrate into utility workflows, and it doesn’t address the hardest power flow modeling challenges of interconnection screening. Our solution was built built with our utility partners who are already experiencing multiple interconnection requests per day and integrates best practices from our past work with DOE and the cooperative community on solar integration. The resulting free and open-source solution has been disseminated through our media channels and conferences that engage over 1,900 utilities nationwide.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Methods to Determine Recommended Feeder-Wide Advanced Inverter Settings for Improving Distribution System Performance

This paper describes methods that a distribution engineer could use to determine advanced inverter settings to improve distribution system performance. These settings are for fixed power factor, volt-var, and volt-watt functionality. Depending on the level of detail that is desired, different methods are proposed to determine single settings applicable for all advanced inverters on a feeder or unique settings for each individual inverter. Seven distinctly different utility distribution feeders are analyzed to simulate the potential benefit in terms of hosting capacity, system losses, and reactive power attained with each method to determine the advanced inverter settings.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Thermal characterization of concentrated solar absorbance using resistive heaters

Thermal management of concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) is necessary in order to optimize cell performance and prevent thermal damage. In order to evaluate the performance of cooling methods, physical simulations of cell heating are used to reproduce the thermal profile without the need of a high flux solar simulator or actual cells. Through using resistive heaters built into the same geometry as a CPV module, cooling system designs can be tested achieving similar power distributions as those predicted through multiphysics modeling. Furthermore, the physical model allows for the testing of thermal and solar power limits and performance in a range of non-ideal condition.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Large-Scale Adoption of Self-Synchronized Universal Droop Controller-Based Inverters to Enable Ancillary Services for Different Modes of Distribution System Operations

This work proposes the large-scale adoption of self-synchronized universal droop controller (SUDC)-based inverters to enable ancillary services for different modes of distribution system operations. The IEEE 123 bus system was modeled on a real-time simulator to study the performance of large-scale adoption of SUDC inverters in a distribution system. The resulting data collected shows that the voltage and the frequency were regulated within ranges, such as less than 5% for voltage and less than 0.5% for frequency, under different load variations and grid operations. Also, the black start was achieved within 0.4 s without any voltage overshoot. Through the simulation and validation on a small microgrid and the IEEE 123 bus distribution system, it can be concluded that the SUDC was successfully adopted to regulate the voltage and the frequency within the given ranges, and black start achieved within 1 s without voltage overshoot for different modes of distribution system operations.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

On Distributed PV Hosting Capacity Estimation, Sensitivity Study, and Improvement

This paper first studies the estimated distributed PV hosting capacities of seventeen utility distribution feeders using the Monte Carlo simulation based stochastic analysis, and then analyzes the sensitivity of PV hosting capacity to both feeder and photovoltaic system characteristics. Furthermore, an active distribution network management approach is proposed to maximize PV hosting capacity by optimally switching capacitors, adjusting voltage regulator taps, managing controllable branch switches and controlling smart PV inverters. The approach is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problem and a genetic algorithm is developed to obtain the solution. Multiple simulation cases are studied and the effectiveness of the proposed approach on increasing PV hosting capacity is demonstrated.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Solar, Wind, and Load Forecasting Dataset for MISO, NYISO, and SPP Balancing Areas

The Performance-based Energy Resource Feedback, Optimization, and Risk Management (PERFORM) program is an initiative intended to foster "a fundamental shift in grid management rooted in an understanding of asset risk and system risk" (ARPA-E 2020). Launched by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the program supports efforts to incorporate uncertainty in electric power decision making. In support of PERFORM, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has produced a set of time-coincident forecasts of solar, wind, and load profiles. As part of Phase I of the PERFORM effort, NREL created a dataset that consists of one year of time-coincident load, wind, and solar actuals and probabilistic forecasts based on data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) (Bryce et al. 2023). In Phase II, NREL developed similar datasets for three other U.S. Independent System Operators (ISO): the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP).

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2016

Voltage Support Study of Smart PV Inverters on a High-Photovoltaic Penetration Utility Distribution Feeder

This paper reports on tools and methodologies developed to study the impact of adding rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems, with and without the ability to provide voltage support, on the voltage profile of distribution feeders. Simulation results are provided from a study of a specific utility feeder. The simulation model of the utility distribution feeder was built in OpenDSS and verified by comparing the simulated voltages to field measurements. First, we set all PV systems to operate at unity power factor and analyzed the impact on feeder voltages. Then we conducted multiple simulations with voltage support activated for all the smart PV inverters. These included different constant power factor settings and volt/VAR controls.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Performance Evaluation of Data-Enhanced Hierarchical Control for Grid Operations

This paper presents a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation to evaluate the performance of voltage regulation of Data-Enhanced Hierarchical Control (DEHC). This DEHC uses an advanced distribution management system (ADMS) for grid operations to control legacy and grid-edge devices and coordinate with distributed energy management systems (DERMS) to manage high penetrations of photovoltaics (PV) on a utility distribution system. The HIL platform provides realistic laboratory testing, including accurate modeling (legacy devices, grid-edge devices, and PV) of the real-world distribution system from a utility partner, a real controller (ADMS), software controller DERMS, hardware grid-edge devices, and standard communications protocols. The test results demonstrate functionalities of the integrated platform and the performance of voltage regulation of the coordinated control systems. Based on laboratory testing, the utility can set up the same grid-automation system to manage DERs, legacy devices, and grid-edge devices to achieve their system-level control and operation objectives (e.g., voltage regulation), thus de-risking potential issues such as instability for field deployment.

41 EE - Solar Energy Technologies Office (EE-4S)↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Model-Predictive Hierarchical-Control Framework for Aggregating Residential DERs to Provide Grid Regulation Services: Preprint

This paper develops a hierarchical control fram-ework to aggregate and control behind-the-meter distributed energy resources (DERs), which will be ubiquitous in future distribution systems. Even though the increasing penetration of DERs will strain the power networks in terms of voltage regul-ation and coordination issues with existing transmission-level conventional generators, the distribution-level DERs can also be utilized to help provide flexibility to the power network while providing cost savings to the DER owners. Therefore, this paper develops a model-predictive control strategy to determine the available power flexibility, and to utilize the flexibility in an aggregated form to provide grid regulation services. Numerical simulations performed on the IEEE 37-bus test system demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Probing and Understanding the Spatial and Energy Distributions of Plasmonic Hot Carriers via Single-Molecule Quantum Transport

The generation of hot carriers in plasmonic nanostructures offers new transformative opportunities for a range of applications, including solar energy harvesting, photochemistry, and photodetection. To better understand such phenomena, this project aims to develop an experimental approach to study and understand hot carrier distributions in photoexcited plasmonic nanostructures. The developed experimental approach, combining scanning probe-based single-molecule quantum transport measurements with plasmonic excitation methods, leverages nanoscopic single molecules as quantum energy filters to selectively access hot carriers in a variety of plasmonic nanostructures. This report summarizes the key outcomes, impacts, and lessons learned in the first two years of the project. Over the past two years, important progress was made in achieving the project's goals, including the development of the scanning probe-based experimental platform, fabrication of plasmonic nanostructures, and design and synthesis of the desired molecular candidates. Insights from this research will pave the path toward the development of technologies that will improve the way we harvest solar energy and drive chemical reactions and ultimately help transition the U.S. to a clean and sustainable society.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Are coupled renewable-battery power plants more valuable than independently sited installations?

Coupled renewable-battery powerplants differ from the traditional concept of independent siting of electricity resources within transmission networks. Prior research on the value proposition and cost savings from coupling did not consider the geographic constraint of co-location. This paper fills the gap by assessing how pricing volatility differences between nodes within electricity markets impact the system value of coupled renewable-battery projects as compared to independent VRE and battery installations. We use wholesale power market prices from 2012–2019 across the seven main U.S. independent system operators (ISOs) with a linear optimization program to compare the electricity market value of coupled projects to the value of the same underlying sub-components, deployed separately. We find that additional value from adding a 4-hour battery sized to 50% of renewable-plant nameplate capacity is $\$$10/MWh across ISOs on average. The highest boost occurs in California ($\$$15/MWh), where the value of adding storage to solar rises over time in tandem with increased solar penetration in the region. If renewables and batteries are deployed independently, we estimate that $\$$12.5/MWh of additional value could be achieved because of more flexibility on battery siting and operation. The $\$$12.5/MWh coupling penalty is reduced to $\$$1.6/MWh when considering alternative approaches to integrating battery storage. This result implies that renewable-battery power plants will play an increasing role in electricity systems if they can be built for $\$$2–$\$$13/MWh less than independent projects of comparable size. However, the wide regional variation in coupling penalties, along with the importance of conditions captured in our sensitivity cases, suggests the tradeoff between coupling penalties and savings will vary by situation. Therefore, roles exist for independent and coupled projects from a system optimization perspective.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

System and Component Transport Considerations of Micro-Pin Based Solar Receivers With High Temperature Gaseous Working Fluids

This paper explores the interactions between micro-pin concentrated receiver designs with overall solar thermal energy system performance, with different operating conditions, working fluid, and required materials of construction. A 320 MW thermal plant coupled to a 160 MW electric sCO2 Brayton cycle is considered as the baseline. The circulating fluid enters the receiver at 550°C, and leaves at 720°C. The thermal storage/power block are located 150 m from the receiver at the base of the receiver tower. A resistance network based thermal and hydraulic model is used to predict heat transfer and pressure drop performance of the micro-pin receiver. This output of this model is coupled to a system level model of the pressure loss and compressor power required in the remainder of the high temperature gas loop. Overall performance is investigated for supercritical carbon dioxide and helium as working fluids, at pressures from 7.5 to 25 MPa, and at delivery temperatures of 720°C. The results show that by modifying pin depth and flow lengths, there are design spaces for micro-pin devices that can provide high thermal performance without significantly reducing the overall solar thermal system output at lower operating pressures. Use of lower pressure fluids enables lower cost materials of construction in the piping and distribution system, reducing the cost of electricity.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗