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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 OSTI2020

The distribution of U.S. electric utility revenue decoupling rate impacts from 2005 to 2017

Electric utilities have historically relied on volumetric energy rates. Reductions in sales can have an adverse effect on a utility's ability to sufficiently recover its costs. Decoupling mechanisms, when properly designed, diminish the link between revenues and sales. Additionally, analysis of annual rate adjustments from decoupling mechanisms indicate the majority of those adjustments are small. However, once a surcharge is applied there is an 86 percent chance there will be a surcharge in the next year.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2019

Structure of lipoprotein lipase in complex with GPIHBP1

Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) plays a central role in triglyceride (TG) metabolism. By catalyzing the hydrolysis of TGs present in TG-rich lipoproteins (TRLs), LPL facilitates TG utilization and regulates circulating TG and TRL concentrations. Until very recently, structural information for LPL was limited to homology models, presumably due to the propensity of LPL to unfold and aggregate. By coexpressing LPL with a soluble variant of its accessory protein glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored high-density lipoprotein binding protein 1 (GPIHBP1) and with its chaperone protein lipase maturation factor 1 (LMF1), we obtained a stable and homogenous LPL/GPIHBP1 complex that was suitable for structure determination. We report here X-ray crystal structures of human LPL in complex with human GPIHBP1 at 2.5–3.0 Å resolution, including a structure with a novel inhibitor bound to LPL. Binding of the inhibitor resulted in ordering of the LPL lid and lipid-binding regions and thus enabled determination of the first crystal structure of LPL that includes these important regions of the protein. It was assumed for many years that LPL was only active as a homodimer. The structures and additional biochemical data reported here are consistent with a new report that LPL, in complex with GPIHBP1, can be active as a monomeric 1:1 complex. The crystal structures illuminate the structural basis for LPL-mediated TRL lipolysis as well as LPL stabilization and transport by GPIHBP1.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

River systems under peaked stress

The change in the global energy production mix towards variable renewable energy sources requires efficient utilization of regulated rivers to optimise hydropower operations meet the needs of a changing energy market. However, the flexible operation of hydropower plants causes non-natural, sub-daily fluctuating flows in the receiving water bodies, often referred to as ‘hydropeaking’. Drastic changes in sub-daily flow regimes undermine attempts to improve river system health. Environmental decision makers, including permitting authorities and river basin managers facing the intense and increasing pressure on river environments, should consider ecosystem services and biodiversity issues more thoroughly. The need for research innovations in hydropeaking operation design to fulfil both the water and energy security responsibilities of hydropower is highlighted. Our paper outlines optimized hydropeaking design as a future research direction to help researchers, managers, and decision-makers prioritize actions that could enable better integration of river science and energy system planning. The goal of this is to find a balanced hydropower operation strategy.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

The resilience value of residential solar + storage systems in the continental U.S.

Abstract Behind the meter rooftop solar plus storage (PVESS) has the potential to benefit the hosting customers by providing affordability, environmental, and reliability and resilience value. Whereas the bill reduction and environmental benefits of PVESS are well studied, its monetary resilience benefits are less understood. The increasing trend of power interruptions driven by extreme weather events heightens the need to understand these benefits. This study leverages various publicly available datasets to perform a cost benefit analysis of adding to determine the resilience value of PVESS for a typical single family home in each county in the continental U.S. We find that PVESS is very effective to technically mitigate interruptions across the country. However, the monetary benefits in the base case only cover about 14% of battery costs, with no county exceeding 60%. This is somewhat expected, given that PVESS provide other monetary benefits that are not part of this analysis. Through sensitivities, we find that higher frequency of extreme weather events roughly triples the resilience value of PVESS and that higher values of lost load double the same metric. Our sensitivity analysis shows that the benefit cost ratio of PVESS for customers living in areas with higher-than-average frequency of long duration interruptions and value of lost load is already above one even without considering other value streams. We conclude with recommendations that regulators and utilities could implement to enable customers to calculate and capture the resilience value of PVESS more efficiently.

Baik, Sunhee↗
DOE OSTI2019

Grid Architecture: A Core Discipline for Grid Modernization

Grid Architecture not only provides valuable new insights into grid modernization planning and design, but also provides the means to future-proof technological investments and to reduce integration costs – two issues that concern regulators and utility executives alike. Proper structure creates intrinsic grid characteristics that bolster resilience, capability, and affordability, and help safeguard investments by limiting change effects. Well-planned grid structure simplifies downstream decisions and frees up architects and engineers working on individual components or systems to employ creativity with assurance that unintended consequences will not crop up to hamper or even invalidate their work. For these reasons, it is not just important, but crucial, that the structural issues addressed by Grid Architecture be considered before other aspects of grid modernization are undertaken.

grid modernization, gmlc, DER, distribution automa↗
DOE OSTI2026

Scalable and Secure Power Outage Data Reporting: A Hexagonal Geospatial Approach

Power outages disrupt critical infrastructure and cause billions of dollars in economic losses annually in the United States. Accurate and granular outage reporting is vital for effective restoration and mitigation. This paper examines the integration of the Hexagonal Hierarchical Geospatial Indexing System (H3) to enhance power outage reporting, leveraging its uniform grid structure, scalable resolutions, and support for privacy-preserving analysis. Using high-resolution LandScan Global population data and K-anonymization techniques, this work achieves a balance between data granularity and privacy. Results show that lower privacy thresholds (e.g., K-anonymity = 2) enable higher resolution, while stricter thresholds (e.g., >15 people per hex) reduce granularity, potentially affecting localized responses. State-and county-level resolution case studies demonstrate H3’s adaptability and the trade-offs between precision and privacy. The proposed H3-based framework offers a scalable and efficient solution for geospatial data integration within the energy sector, such as outage data, aiding utilities and regulators in improving resilience and response efforts, particularly in disaster-prone regions.

Ahmad, Nasir [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000150677368)↗
DOE OSTI2021

REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS, GUIDANCE, AND REVIEW OF EMBEDDED DIGITAL DEVICES IN SAFETY SYSTEMS

Interest in embedded digital devices (EDDs) for monitoring and providing control of components is increasing in the nuclear power market as more and more users both within and outside the nuclear sector are employing EDDs. EDDs in other industries or countries may be known by the related terms as smart devices, devices of limited functionality, or intelligent devices. EDDs can sometimes perform a safety role when embedded in components such as temperature transmitters, pressure transmitters, voltage regulators, gas analyzers, boiler controllers, relays, and radiation monitors. The introduction of EDDs can affect safety by creating new hazards, vulnerabilities, failure modes, triggering mechanisms, and other potential safety concerns at both the component and system levels. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) existing regulations and guidance cover the use of EDDs in safety-related and important to safety systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs). In addition to potential future challenges, the nature of EDDs being implemented in similar or identical manners between different plants and industries opens up the potential of leveraging the reviews of other regulators or utilization of industry certifications.Key words: embedded digital device, firmware

Halverson, D. S.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Business Models for Scaling Demand Flexibility Volume III – Stakeholder ecosystem management challenges, and lessons learned from U.S. programs

Load growth at the grid edge is driving increased attention to the distribution system and its ability to enable customer technology adoption in an affordable and timely manner. Key industry stakeholders, including electric utilities and regulators, can benefit from strategies to manage and balance customer needs with infrastructure investments, such as demand flexibility. This report focuses on demand flexibility—the ability to reduce, shift, shed, generate, or modulate loads in response to building and grid needs—to reduce the need for costly grid upgrades by deferring investment needs and increase system reliability by shifting electricity usage during periods of high risk. Specifically, we focus on the emerging characteristics of business models for demand flexibility as a framework to understand how demand flexibility programs generate value. In this report, we focus on demand flexibility program stakeholder ecosystem management strategies, which provide information on value delivery and describe how program implementers leverage partner capabilities and collaborate to deliver customer and grid benefits. This report discusses the role of stakeholder ecosystem management in demand flexibility programs, identifies existing challenges to effective stakeholder management, and describes lessons learned. This report is part of a series that includes reports on value propositions, customer relationship management strategies, and program life cycle.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Business Models for Scaling Demand Flexibility Volume II – Customer relationship management strategies, challenges, and lessons learned from U.S. programs

Load growth at the grid edge is driving increased attention to the distribution system and its ability to enable customer technology adoption in an affordable and timely manner. Key industry stakeholders, including electric utilities and regulators, can benefit from strategies to manage and balance customer needs with infrastructure investments, such as demand flexibility. This report focuses on demand flexibility—the ability to reduce, shift, shed, generate, or modulate loads in response to building and grid needs—to reduce the need for costly grid upgrades by deferring investment needs and increase system reliability by shifting electricity usage during periods of high risk. Specifically, we focus on the emerging characteristics of business models for demand flexibility as a framework to understand how demand flexibility programs generate value. In this report, we focus on demand flexibility program customer relationship management strategies, which provide information on value creation and focus on ensuring customers can navigate programs smoothly. This report discusses the role of customer relationship management strategies in demand flexibility programs, characterizes customer relationship management strategies that can be considered during program design and implementation, identifies existing challenges to customer relationship management strategies, and describes lessons learned. This report is part of a series that includes reports on value propositions, stakeholder ecosystem management, and program life cycle.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Business Models for Scaling Demand Flexibility Volume I – Value proposition characteristics, challenges, and lessons learned from U.S. programs

Load growth at the grid edge is driving increased attention to the distribution system and its ability to enable customer technology adoption in an affordable and timely manner. Key industry stakeholders, including electric utilities and regulators, can benefit from strategies to manage and balance customer needs with infrastructure investments, such as demand flexibility. This report focuses on demand flexibility—the ability to reduce, shift, shed, generate, or modulate loads in response to building and grid needs—to reduce the need for costly grid upgrades by deferring investment needs and increase system reliability by shifting electricity usage during periods of high risk. Specifically, we focus on the emerging characteristics of business models for demand flexibility as a framework to understand how demand flexibility programs generate value. In this report, we focus on demand flexibility value propositions, which provide information on value creation and describe how programs deliver clear benefits that address customer and grid needs. This report discusses the role of value propositions in demand flexibility programs, provides an overview of value propositions for a range of demand flexibility stakeholders, identifies existing challenges to establishing an effective value proposition, and describes lessons learned. This report is part of a series that includes reports on customer relationship management strategies, stakeholder ecosystem management, and program life cycle.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Business Models for Scaling Demand Flexibility Volume IV – Program life cycle challenges and lessons learned from U.S. programs

Load growth at the grid edge is driving increased attention to the distribution system and its ability to enable customer technology adoption in an affordable and timely manner. Key industry stakeholders, including electric utilities and regulators, can benefit from strategies to manage and balance customer needs with infrastructure investments, such as demand flexibility. This report focuses on demand flexibility—the ability to reduce, shift, shed, generate, or modulate loads in response to building and grid needs—to reduce the need for costly grid upgrades by deferring investment needs and increase system reliability by shifting electricity usage during periods of high risk. Specifically, we focus on the emerging characteristics of business models for demand flexibility as a framework to understand how demand flexibility programs generate value. In this report, we focus on the life cycle of demand flexibility programs, which provides information on value creation and describes the various deployment phases program implementers navigate from initial program conceptualization through to program expansion and replication to new customer segments and regions. This report characterizes the key phases of the demand flexibility program life cycle, identifies existing challenges across the program deployment phases, and describes lessons learned. This report is part of a series that includes reports on customer relationship management strategies, stakeholder ecosystem management, and program life cycle.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2018

Focusing the Sun: State Considerations for Designing Community Solar Policy

This report summarizes outcomes from the National Community Solar Partnership State Best Practices working group by identifying key differences in state policies that enable community solar and illustrating how various policy design approaches may impact the market. For the latter question, it is too early to quantify a relationship between policy design and market impacts, because most state programs have not been fully implemented. So, the authors conducted interviews with 19 subject matter experts, including project developers, regulators, and utilities to better understand how various policy design approaches may impact community solar markets. These perspectives, along with those gleaned from the working group and relevant literature were synthesized to identify key considerations for policymakers designing community solar programs. Though state community solar policies vary in numerous ways, the report focuses on the following critical elements: program cap, project size cap, subscriber location requirements, subscriber eligibility requirements, low- and moderate-income stipulations, and subscriber compensation.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Technical and Economic Aspects of Designing an Efficient Room Air-Conditioner Program in India

Several studies have projected a massive increase in the demand for air conditioners (ACs) over the next two decades in India. By 2030, room ACs could add 140 GW to the peak load, equivalent to over 30% of the total projected peak load. Therefore, there is significant interest among policymakers, regulators, and utilities in managing room AC demand by enhancing energy efficiency. Building on the historical success of the Indian Bureau of Energy Efficiency’s star-labeling program, Energy Efficiency Services Limited recently announced a program to accelerate the sale of efficient room ACs using bulk procurement, similar to their successful UJALA light-emitting diode (LED) bulk procurement program. This report discusses some of the key considerations in designing a bulk procurement or financial incentive program for enhancing room AC efficiency in India. We draw upon our previous research to demonstrate the overall technical potential and price impact of room AC efficiency improvement and its technical feasibility in India. We also discuss the importance of using low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants and smart AC equipment that is demand response (DR) ready.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Case Study: Applying the Idaho National Laboratory Resilience Framework to St. Mary’s, Alaska

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) resilience framework has been developed to broadly apply to EEDS so that all elements of systems that contain distributed wind can be part of the resilience evaluation. The users or audience for this framework can include any stakeholders associated with the EEDS. Not all electrical energy systems have the same stakeholders; customers, owners, and operators are generally present but have different interests. Considering the broad electrical grid, customers, regulators, investors, utility planners, engineers, and operators each have an interest in system resilience driven from different motivating factors. This document focuses on the planning stage of the framework. In this document, each step is explained briefly before demonstrating its application to the St. Mary’s-Mt. Village system. The framework can be used for many types of resilience planning. It can be used to evaluate current overall resilience, or the resilience of certain subsystems. It can be used to explore existing resilience weak points and propose mitigations. It can also be used to evaluate the resilience benefits of a new investment. We use the latter application for this case study. Although the wind turbine in St. Mary’s has already been installed, the resilience benefits that the turbine provided were not well defined. It was installed with the main objective to generate electric power from a renewable resource in an effort to reduce the local dependency on fuel oil as the sole source of electric power generation, which is a resilience goal on its own, but there are other ways in which the turbine can add resilience to the system, as well as scenarios of interest to analyze how resilient the wind turbine itself is against different hazards. In this case study, we analyze the operation of the St. Mary’s power system both with the wind installed and without the wind installed during different resilience hazards of interest. This allows us to compare the performance with wind and without wind and to quantify the resilience benefits provided by wind. Our MIRACL partners at PNNL will then take the resilience benefits and assign value to the resilience provided by wind based on costs and costs avoided in the different scenarios.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Resilience Insights from New York State Stakeholders

A diverse set of New York State stakeholders—representing state agencies, authorities, utilities, and regulators—were interviewed on their perceptions of energy resilience. This summary synthesizes the 34 interviews to examine the degree of shared understanding around resilience, to identify opportunities to address common challenges, and to align stakeholder interests to better serve New York State's services, systems, and people.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

An Integrated Framework for Risk Assessment of Safety-related Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems in Nuclear Power Plants: Methodology Refinement and Exploration

This report documents activities performed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) during Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Light Water Reactor Sustainability (LWRS) Program, Risk Informed Systems Analysis (RISA) Pathway, digital instrumentation and control (DI&C) risk assessment project. In FY 2019, the RISA Pathway initiated a project to develop a risk assessment strategy for delivering a technical basis to support effective, and secure DI&C technologies for digital upgrades/designs. A risk assessment-informed framework was proposed for this strategy, which aims to (1) provide a best-estimate, risk informed capability to quantitatively estimate the safety margin obtained from plant modernization, especially for safety-related DI&C systems, (2) support and supplement existing risk informed DI&C design guides by providing quantitative risk information and evidence, (3) offer a capability of design architecture evaluation of various DI&C systems, (4) assure the long-term safety and reliability of safety-related DI&C systems, and (5) reduce uncertainty in costs and support integration of DI&C systems in the plant. To achieve these technical goals, the LWRS-developed framework provides a means to address relevant technical issues by: (1) defining a risk informed analysis process for DI&C upgrade that integrates hazard analysis, reliability analysis, and consequence analysis, (2) applying risk informed tools to address common cause failures (CCFs) and quantify corresponding failure probabilities for DI&C technologies, particularly software CCFs, (3) evaluating the impact of digital failures at the component level, system level, and plant level, and (4) providing insights and suggestions on designs to manage the risks, thus to support the development and deployment of advanced DI&C technologies in nuclear power plants (NPPs). Adding diversity within a system or components is the primary means to eliminate and mitigate CCFs, but diversity also increases system complexity and may not address all sources of systematic failures. Optimization of diversity and redundancy applications for the safety-critical DI&C systems remains a challenge. To deal with the technical issues in addressing potential software CCFs in safety-related DI&C systems of NPPs and supporting relevant design optimization, the proposed framework provides: (a) A best-estimate, risk informed capability to address new technical digital issues quantitatively, focusing on software CCFs in safety-related DI&C systems of NPPs; (b) A common and a modularized platform for DI&C designers, software developers, cybersecurity analysts, and plant engineers to predict and prevent risk in the early design stage of DI&C systems; (c) Technical bases and risk informed insights to assist users address the risk informed alternatives for evaluation of CCFs in safety-related DI&C systems of NPPs; and (d) A risk informed tool that offers a capability of design architecture evaluation of various DI&C systems to support system design decisions in diversity and redundancy applications. The research and development efforts of this project in FY 2023 are focused on refining current methods on software CCF modeling and estimation and exploring additional innovative approaches to risk assessment of DI&C systems to enable a more comprehensive and complete assessment of various safety-related DI&C design architectures. The primary audience of this report are DI&C designers, engineers, and probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) practitioners. This includes stakeholders, such as the nuclear utilities and regulators who consider the deployment and upgrade of DI&C systems, DI&C software developers and reviewers, and cybersecurity specialists. It should be noted that all the analyses are performed for the demonstration of the methodology, not for the evaluation of an actual digital control system. Results are obtained based on limited design information and testing data.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Cybersecurity for Clean Energy Resources [Slides]

This presentation provides motivation for research in clean energy cybersecurity and highlights INL projects and capabilities to address clean energy cybersecurity needs. The projects are broken down by device level, plant level, utility level, regulation level, and implementation. This introduction to INL capabilities creates opportunity for further conversations around how cohort members can improve their own organizational security postures.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Proactive Regulatory Approaches to Electrification and Load Growth: Pre-read Document to Support the July 10-11 th Workshop

This document summarizes objectives and context related to a DOE-funded workshop on proactive regulatory approaches to electrification and load growth. It briefly summarizes some of the regulatory barriers to pursuing a proactive approach and some of the risks associated with such an approach. It then summarizes a selection of recent utility proposals and public utility commission actions related to proactive approaches.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗