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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 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Framework for Assessing Impact of Wave-Powered Desalination on Resilience of Coastal Communities

Coastal communities face unique challenges in maintaining continuous service from critical infrastructure. This research advances capabilities for evaluating the impact of using wave energy to desalinate water on the resilience of coastal communities. The study focuses on the feasibility of using wave energy conversion to provide drinking water to communities in need and applying resilience metrics to quantify its impact on the community. To assess the feasibility of wave-powered desalination, this research couples the open-source software Wave Energy Converter SIMulator (WEC-Sim) and Water Network Tool for Resilience (WNTR). This research explores variations in both the wave resource (location, seasonality, and duration) and the ability to maintain drinking water service during a disruption scenario by applying the simulation framework to three case studies, which are based on communities in Puerto Rico. The simulation framework provides a contextualized assessment of the ability of wave-powered desalination to improve the resilience of coastal communities, which can serve as a methodology for future studies seeking the integration of wave-powered desalination with water distribution systems.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2022

Case Study: Resilience Benefits of Distributed Wind Against Fuel and Weather Hazards in Alaska

In this case study of St. Mary’s Village, Alaska, we present a resilience evaluation exercise. A resilience framework is employed to identify system characteristics, relevant metrics, and resilience hazards and to assess the performance against the hazards with and without a distributed wind system installed. The results show the resilience benefits provided by the distributed wind installation against fuel shortage hazards and cold weather hazards. The resilience benefits can be assigned monetary values, which will be highly dependent on actual circumstances of the hazard, but provide insight into value streams of distributed wind that are not usually considered. For example, the single 900 kW turbine was found to prevent an average of 14,643 kWh of load from being dropped during a two-day diesel fuel shortage event, which saved the community $447,592 from the prevented outages. This case study serves as an example for novel power system resilience analysis and builds understanding of resilience hazards that are common across many power systems.

Culler, Megan J.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Operational Resilience of Nuclear-Renewable Integrated-Energy Microgrids

The increasing prevalence and severity of wildfires, severe storms, and cyberattacks is driving the introduction of numerous microgrids to improve resilience locally. While distributed energy resources (DERs), such as small-scale wind and solar photovoltaics with storage, will be major components in future microgrids, today, the majority of microgrids are backed up with fossil-fuel-based generators. Small modular reactors (SMRs) can form synergistic mix with DERs due to their ability to provide baseload and flexible power. The heat produced by SMRs can also fulfill the heating needs of microgrid consumers. This paper discusses an operational scheme based on distributed control of flexible power assets to strengthen the operational resilience of SMR-DER integrated-energy microgrids. A framework is developed to assess the operational resilience of SMR-DER microgrids in terms of system adaptive real-power capacity quantified as a response area metric (RAM). Month-long simulation results are shown with a microgrid developed in a modified Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)-30 bus system. The RAM values calculated along the operational simulation reflect the system resilience in real time and can be used to supervise the microgrid operation and reactor’s autonomous control.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Damage Assessment After Typhoon Mawar: Findings and Recommendations for Resilient PV on Guam

A team from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) visited Guam in August 2023 to assess failure modes of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems after Typhoon Mawar and to provide recommendations to increase the resilience of PV systems on Guam. The team visited 30 systems: commercial and utility scale, and rooftop and ground-mounted. The team observed systems with no apparent damage, as well as systems that were completely lost. Systems fared very well overall. The average failure rate of rooftop systems was 18%, with a median failure rate of 2%, meaning the few systems that suffered total loss pulled up the average. Only eight 8 of the 25 rooftop systems suffered more than 5% damage. All ground-mounted systems suffered less than 0.5% damage, aside from a carport that lost 16% of its modules. PV systems at Andersen Air Force Base suffered 5% damage on average, with a median system failure of 0.6%. In almost all cases, failures were the result of: (1) Inadequate clamping of the module frame to the mount, (2) Module mounting clamps rotating out of underlying support rail (i.e., T-bolt that rotates free at less than 60 degrees of rotation), (3) An object hitting the panel resulting in a fracture, and in some cases leading to a cascading failure of several more panels, and (4) Excessive tilt angle (in Guam, greater than 5 degrees can be a risk due to wind speed, and power production trade-offs are insignificant).

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Improving the Cyber Resiliency and Security Posture of Public Power (Final Report)

The key objective of Improving the Cyber Resiliency and Security Posture of Public Power (Project) was to develop a culture of cyber resiliency and security within the public power community. The relative smaller size and unique structure of community-owned electric utilities can sometimes present challenges in immediate recognition of threats and the escalation of potential incidents. The Project offered targeted education, coordination, capability building, and resources to help the public power community better understand, install, and implement cyber and physical resiliency and security systems. The American Public Power Association (APPA) accelerated efforts to develop resources for and with the public power community to understand and implement resiliency, cybersecurity and cyber-physical solutions, including refining and improving the adoption of advanced control concepts. The Project consisted of four major multi-pronged tasks which included: 1) Advance cyber resiliency and security assessments; 2) Conduct, evaluate, and use the results of onsite vulnerability assessments; 3) Research, evaluate, deploy, and integrate both commercial and pre-commercial security technologies; and 4) Research, evaluate, and implement information sharing mechanisms.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Governance and resilience as entry points for transforming food systems in the countdown to 2030

Due to complex interactions, changes in any one area of food systems are likely to impact—and possibly depend on—changes in other areas. Here we present the first annual monitoring update of the indicator framework proposed by the Food Systems Countdown Initiative, with new qualitative analysis elucidating interactions across indicators. Since 2000, we find that 20 of 42 indicators with time series have been trending in a desirable direction, indicating modest positive change. Qualitative expert elicitation assessed governance and resilience indicators to be most connected to other indicators across themes, highlighting entry points for action—particularly governance action. Literature review and country case studies add context to the assessed interactions across diets, environment, livelihoods, governance and resilience indicators, helping different actors understand and navigate food systems towards desirable change.

Schneider, Kate R. [Johns Hopkins Univ., Washingto↗
DOE OSTI2024

CARILEC Resilient Energy Community CoP for Cybersecurity Workshop Series: Cybersecurity Assessment Tools [Slides]

For the last several years and in collaboration with CARILEC, USAID and NREL have been working to support cyber resilience at power sector utilities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Direct technical assistance with regional utilities has been a key component of USAID-NREL Partnership activities, and technical assistance has typically included a foundational cybersecurity assessment using NREL's Distributed Energy Resource Cybersecurity Framework (DER-CF) tool. The DER-CF allows organizations to benchmark and evaluate their cybersecurity posture across the areas of Governance, Technical Management, and Physical Security. To complement the activities of the newly created CAREC IT/OT and Cybersecurity Team, this webinar on cybersecurity assessment tools includes an overview of the DER-CF tool and a discussion with regional stakeholders and NREL experts on the DER-CF assessment process and other resources for cybersecurity assessments.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Probabilistic Resilience of DER Systems - A Simulation Assisted Optimization Approach

Energy systems resilience is becoming increasingly important as the frequency of major grid outages increases. In this work, we present a methodology to optimize a behind-tlie-meter distributed energy resource system to sustain a site's critical loads during a pre-defined outage period. With the fixed system design, we then propose an outage simulation approach to estimate the resilience potential of the DER system to sustain loads beyond the fixed outage period - a yearlong resilience performance analysis. We apply statistical analysis to assess the system's resilience performance over a broader parametric problem space on an hourly, monthly, and yearly basis. We demonstrate the impact of the pre-defined outage period on the resilience performance through a case study. Results show that the probability of surviving a random outage of a given duration changes from 20% to 95% when the outage is modeled for a weekday instead of a weekend for the given load-profile.

28 EE - Advanced Manufacturing Office (EE-5A)↗
DOE OSTI2021

Probabilistic Resilience of DER Systems - A Simulation Assisted Optimization Approach

Energy systems resilience is becoming increasingly important as the frequency of major grid outages increases. In this work, we present a methodology to optimize a behind-the-meter distributed energy resource system to sustain a site's critical loads during a pre-defined outage period. With the fixed system design, we then propose an outage simulation approach to estimate the resilience potential of the DER system to sustain loads beyond the fixed outage period - a yearlong resilience performance analysis. We apply statistical analysis to assess the system's resilience performance over a broader parametric problem space on an hourly, monthly, and yearly basis. We demonstrate the impact of the pre-defined outage period on the resilience performance through a case study. Results show that the probability of surviving a random outage of a given duration changes from 20% to 95% when the outage is modeled for a weekday instead of a weekend for the given load-profile.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Resilient cooling strategies – A critical review and qualitative assessment

The global effects of climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heatwaves and power outages, which have consequences for buildings and their cooling systems. Buildings and their cooling systems should be designed and operated to be resilient under such events to protect occupants from potentially dangerous indoor thermal conditions. This study performed a critical review on the state-of-the-art of cooling strategies, with special attention to their performance under heatwaves and power outages. We proposed a definition of resilient cooling and described four criteria for resilience—absorptive capacity, adaptive capacity, restorative capacity, and recovery speed —and used them to qualitatively evaluate the resilience of each strategy. The literature review and qualitative analyses show that to attain resilient cooling, the four resilience criteria should be considered in the design phase of a building or during the planning of retrofits. The building and relevant cooling system characteristics should be considered simultaneously to withstand extreme events. A combination of strategies with different resilience capacities, such as a passive envelope strategy coupled with a low-energy space-cooling solution, may be needed to obtain resilient cooling. Finally, a further direction for a quantitative assessment approach has been pointed out.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2025

Accelerating Resilience of the Community through Holistic Engagement and use of Renewables (ARCHER) Planning Framework

The primary objective of the Accelerating Resilience of the Community through Holistic Engagement and Use of Renewables (ARCHER) initiative was to identify and incorporate the unique variations in energy burden, social vulnerability, living conditions, and access to essential services that differ across communities. By accounting for these localized factors—down to the neighborhood level—the project supports more targeted and effective investments in community resilience. The framework seeks to establish practical planning guidance, methods, and performance measures for community energy resilience, integrate community-level and electric utility system resilience planning, and assess its effectiveness through comparison with conventional and operational planning approaches. A key component of the project was its data exchange platform, which is used to evaluate and demonstrate the tools, methodologies, and planning approaches developed through ARCHER. This open-source platform enables developers and vendors of distribution and outage management systems to build upon the research by incorporating its concepts into their own tools and workflows. This capability is enabled by the transparent availability of data, functional requirements, and the underlying information model. The project yielded several important insights. First, meaningful engagement with communities is essential to achieving comprehensive resilience outcomes. Second, resilience planning is most effective when electric grid considerations and broader community needs are addressed in a coordinated manner. Third, the use of platforms that allow for real-time input from communities can enhance utility responsiveness during restoration activities. Fourth, a structured and systematic planning approach can successfully translate ARCHER concepts into practice. Fifth, the development of an integrated metric that reflects both grid performance and community impacts provides a more holistic basis for evaluating resilience. Finally, incorporating community engagement and equity considerations into grid operations is critical, particularly during severe weather events that result in extended outages.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Optimal Operation and Impact Assessment of Distributed Wind for Improving Efficiency and Resilience of Rural Electricity Systems

This project aims to empower rural utilities by developing advanced optimization models and algorithms for effectively integrating distributed wind energy alongside battery storage and other distributed energy resources (DERs). The primary objectives are to reduce peak demand, ensure reliable emergency power supply, and regulate voltage and frequency. To address operational challenges, the project introduces innovative mitigation strategies and ultrafast assessment frameworks to evaluate the impacts of distributed wind and DERs on rural grids, offering actionable solutions to potential issues. Economic viability is assessed through cost-benefit analysis using real rural utility data, ensuring the practical application of the project outcomes.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Assessing Historical Extreme Weather Event Impacts

Resilience planning, particularly energy and water resilience planning, has been a key priority for the federal government for many years, leading federal agencies to develop processes for identifying and addressing critical resilience gaps at their facilities and sites. Furthermore, recent federal policy is driving agencies to prioritize climate change impacts as a more central component of their resilience planning efforts. To achieve this, federal sites must understand their vulnerability to climate change, which involves identifying climate hazards projected to impact the site (known as exposure), as well as understanding the sensitivity (the degree to which a site, including its people and the things they value, could be harmed by that exposure), and adaptive capacity of the site (the degree to which the site could lessen bathe potential for harm by taking action to reduce exposure and sensitivity). To assess and understand sensitivity and adaptive capacity, it is important to first obtain a baseline and understand how a site has been impacted by past events, in addition to considering the potential for unprecedented impacts based on climate projections. This information paper highlights current limitations for developing event history assessments and suggests a framework for more consistently capturing key data points. The purpose of this paper is to help inform how organizations could begin structuring a comprehensive process for recording the impacts of extreme weather events in order to facilitate climate vulnerability assessments, and thus, resilience planning.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

One hundred priority questions for advancing seagrass conservation in Europe

Societal Impact Statement Seagrass ecosystems are of fundamental importance to our planet and wellbeing. Seagrasses are marine flowering plants, which engineer ecosystems that provide a multitude of ecosystem services, for example, blue foods and carbon sequestration. Seagrass ecosystems have largely been degraded across much of their global range. There is now increasing interest in the conservation and restoration of these systems, particularly in the context of the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis. The collation of 100 questions from experts across Europe could, if answered, improve our ability to conserve and restore these systems by facilitating a fundamental shift in the success of such work. Summary Seagrass meadows provide numerous ecosystem services including biodiversity, coastal protection, and carbon sequestration. In Europe, seagrasses can be found in shallow sheltered waters along coastlines, in estuaries & lagoons, and around islands, but their distribution has declined. Factors such as poor water quality, coastal modification, mechanical damage, overfishing, land‐sea interactions, climate change and disease have reduced the coverage of Europe’s seagrasses necessitating their recovery. Research, monitoring and conservation efforts on seagrass ecosystems in Europe are mostly uncoordinated and biased towards certain species and regions, resulting in inadequate delivery of critical information for their management. Here, we aim to identify the 100 priority questions, that if addressed would strongly advance seagrass monitoring, research and conservation in Europe. Using a Delphi method, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with seagrass experience from across Europe and with diverse seagrass expertise participated in the process that involved the formulation of research questions, a voting process and an online workshop to identify the final list of the 100 questions. The final list of questions covers areas across nine themes: Biodiversity & Ecology; Ecosystem services; Blue carbon; Fishery support; Drivers, Threats, Resilience & Response; Monitoring & Assessment; Conservation & Restoration; Governance, Policy & Management; and Communication. Answering these questions will fill current knowledge gaps and place European seagrass onto a positive trajectory of recovery.

Nordlund, Lina Mtwana↗
DOE OSTI2026

Learning earthquake ground motions via conditional generative modeling

Predicting high-fidelity ground motions for future earthquakes is crucial for seismic hazard assessment and infrastructure resilience. Conventional empirical simulations suffer from sparse sensor distribution and geographically localized earthquake locations, while physics-based methods are computationally intensive and require accurate representations of Earth structures and earthquake sources. We propose an artificial intelligence (AI) spectrogram generator, Conditional Generative Modeling for Ground Motion (CGM-GM). CGM-GM leverages earthquake magnitudes and geographic coordinates of earthquakes and sensors as inputs, when postprocessed with phase information, capturing spatially continuous Fourier amplitude spectra (FAS) as well as properties such as P and S arrivals, and waveform durations, without explicit physics constraints. This is achieved through a probabilistic autoencoder that extracts latent distributions in the time-frequency domain and variational sequential models for prior and posterior distributions. We evaluate the performance of CGM-GM using small-magnitude earthquake records from the San Francisco Bay Area, a region with high seismic risks. Here, we report that CGM-GM demonstrates potential for complementing physics-based simulations and non-ergodic empirical ground motion models, as well as shows promise in seismology and beyond.

geophysics↗
DOE OSTI2023

Salinity–induced limits to mangrove canopy height

Aim: Mangrove canopy height is a key metric to assess tidal forests' resilience in the face of climate change. In terrestrial forests, tree height is primarily determined by water availability, plant hydraulic design, and disturbance regime. However, the role of water stress remains elusive in tidal environments, where saturated soils are prevalent, and salinity can substantially affect the soil water potential. Location: Global. Time Period: The canopy height dataset provides a global snapshot of the maximum mangrove height geographical distribution for the year 2000. Climate and environmental variables extend over the period 1970–2018. Major Taxa Studied: Mangroves. Methods: We use global observations of maximum canopy height, species richness, air temperature, and seawater salinity—a proxy of soil water salt concentration—to explore the causal link between salinity and mangrove stature. Results: Our findings suggest that salt stress limits mangrove height. High salinity favours more salt-tolerant species, narrowing the spectrum of viable traits. Highly salt-tolerant mangroves have evolved to cope with high salt concentrations in the soil, but this adaptation comes at a cost. They typically have lower rates of photosynthesis and growth, resulting in reduced productivity and smaller stature compared to more salt-sensitive mangrove species. This suggests a causal link between salinity, biodiversity, and tree height, where high salinity selects for more salt-tolerant species that tend to be less productive and shorter. Conclusions: We hypothesize that the salinity-induced limit to mangrove canopy height is the direct result of a reduction of primary productivity, an increment in the risk of xylem cavitation, and an indirect consequence of the decrease in biodiversity. As sea-level rise enhances coastal salinisation, failure to account for these effects can lead to incorrect estimates of future carbon stocks in Tropical coastal ecosystems and endanger preservation efforts.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗