Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “price sensitivity”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Superstructure Optimization of Waste Plastic Pyrolysis, Integrating Thermal, Catalytic, and Plasma Technologies with Machine Learning

Global plastic waste generation exceeds 430 million tonnes per year, yet fewer than 9% are recycled in the United States. Pyrolysis offers a chemical recycling route at scale, but existing techno-economic and life cycle assessments fix product yields to single pure polymers, producing economic and environmental outputs that break down when the feed composition changes. Here, we present a superstructure optimization framework that addresses this by embedding a composition-aware random forest yield predictor, trained on 566 pyrolysis experiments, within a full-scale process simulation. Product distributions update automatically as feed allocation shifts across four reactor chemistries: conventional thermal, catalytic (HZSM-5), thermal oxo-degradation, and nonequilibrium CO2 plasma. The optimal superstructure achieves minimum selling prices of −0.56 to −0.76/kg feed and global warming potentials of −0.276 to −0.322 kg CO2-eq/kg feed across four commodity price scenarios, confirming profitable, carbon-negative operation without tipping fees. Carbon abatement costs of $\$$0.46 to $\$$1.25/kg CO2-eq are competitive with direct air capture. Sensitivity analysis shows that the catalytic-plasma split fraction is the single largest driver of both economic and climate performance, while hydrocracking allocation in the wax upgrading stage is emission-neutral across the full variable range. Mixed plastic waste streams, evaluated as composition-variable feedstocks rather than pure resins, are profitable and carbon-negative across realistic market conditions. These results give a quantitative basis for reactor selection, circular economy investment, and policy design targeting chemical recycling on a large scale.

Life cycle assessment↗
DOE OSTI2024

Large-scale spatially explicit analysis of carbon capture at cellulosic biorefineries

The large-scale production of cellulosic biofuels would involve spatially distributed systems including biomass fields, logistics networks and biorefineries. Better understanding of the interactions between landscape-related decisions and the design of biorefineries with carbon capture and storage (CCS) in a supply chain context is needed to enable efficient systems. Here we analyse the cost and greenhouse gas mitigation potential for cellulosic biofuel supply chains in the US Midwest using realistic spatially explicit land availability and crop productivity data and consider fuel conversion technologies with detailed CCS design for their associated CO 2 streams. Optimization methods identify trade-offs and design strategies leading to systems with attractive environmental and economic performance. Strategic and operational decisions depend on underlying spatial features and are sensitive to biofuel demand and CCS incentives. US CCS incentives neglect to motivate greenhouse gas mitigation from all supply chain emission sources, which leverage spatial interactions between CCS, electricity prices and the biomass landscape.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Evaluating Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on the U.S. Power System

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, commonly referred to as the 'Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL),' collectively represent the largest commitment of the U.S. Federal Government to invest in the modernization and decarbonization of the U.S. energy system. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that total support for the broad range of climate and clean energy programs, tax credits, and other incentives authorized through the two laws will exceed $430 billion from 2022 through 2031 (CRS 2022; CBO 2021, 2022). While the climate and clean energy provisions are numerous and have the potential to impact all aspects of the U.S. energy system from fuel and electricity production to final consumption in industry, transportation, and buildings, the provisions relevant to the electricity sector - in particular the suite of tax credits for clean generation, storage, and carbon dioxide ( CO 2 ) capture and storage - are expected to be some of the most consequential in terms of emissions reduction and clean energy deployment (Larsen et al. 2022; Jenkins, Mayfield, et al. 2022; Mahajan et al. 2022; Zhao et al. 2022). In this report, we detail the methods and results of a study estimating the potential impacts of key provisions of IRA and BIL on the contiguous U.S. power sector from present day through 2030. The analysis employs an advanced power system planning model, the Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS), to evaluate how major provisions from both laws impact investment in and operation of utility-scale generation, storage, and transmission, and, in turn, how those changes impact power system costs, emissions, and climate and health damages. While not exhaustive in capturing every provision, the analysis estimates the possible scale of power-sector impacts that could result from the modeled provisions in IRA and BIL. The study is structured around two scenarios to evaluate the potential impacts of both laws on the power sector: 1) No New Policy: A counter-factual scenario that reflects all Federal and state policies enacted as of September 2022, with exception to IRA and BIL, and assumes load growth consistent with the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook 2022 (AEO22) Reference case (EIA 2022a); 2) IRA-BIL: A scenario reflecting all Federal and state policies enacted as of September 2022, including key IRA and BIL provisions, most notably the investment and production tax credits for zero-carbon emitting electricity generation and storage (ITC and PTC), the tax credit for CO 2 capture and storage (45Q), and the tax credit for existing nuclear plants (described further in Section 2.3). To account for the impacts of IRA and BIL on electrification, assumes increased load growth consistent with a scaled version of the Medium Electrification scenario from the Electrification Futures Study (Mai et al. 2018). These scenarios are simulated across seven sets of assumptions with varying projected future electricity market conditions, including technology costs and performance, natural gas prices, and the degree of availability, feasibility, and cost of development of renewable resources, electricity transmission, and CO 2 pipeline, injection, and storage infrastructure. In addition, we simulate two sensitivities on the 'policy' treatment in which we vary key assumptions pertaining to the realized value of the clean electricity ITC and PTC: 1) the cost of monetization of tax credits, and 2) the level of bonus crediting realized by project developers. We demonstrate that IRA and BIL have the collective potential to drive substantial growth in clean electricity by 2030, while reducing costs for consumers, mitigating climate change, and decreasing the human health impacts of power sector emissions. However, we also demonstrate that if expected cost improvements of clean technologies are not realized and/or constraints on deployment driven by factors such as supply-chain challenges, regulatory hurdles, and the social acceptability of energy infrastructure development limit the rate of clean energy and associated infrastructure deployment (such as transmission), then the share of clean generation achieved and the associated emissions benefits realized may be substantively reduced.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Process Feasibility Analysis of Waste Biomass Valorization to Biochar and Bio-Oil via Slow and Fast Pyrolysis

The United States has abundant biomass and waste feedstock to support the nation's energy addition and affordability targets. Pyrolysis, a thermochemical conversion process, decomposes lignocellulosic feedstocks into liquid, solid, and gaseous fuels that can contribute to the domestic production of biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts. Growing private sector interest in this technology is a key motivation for this comprehensive techno-economic process modeling analysis of a respective biorefinery that includes feedstock preprocessing, slow and fast pyrolysis, and product separation to bio-oil, biochar, and syngas hydrocarbons. Results show that biochar from slow pyrolysis could achieve minimum selling prices (MSPs) of $\$$188-$\$$260/t, competitive with reported market values, while bio-oil from fast pyrolysis is estimated to yield MSPs of $\$$6.49-$\$$9.68/GGE, approximately twice conventional fuel benchmarks. Sensitivity analysis identifies feedstock cost, product yield, and scale as primary cost drivers, while scenarios involving biochar carbon credits and high value applications may substantially improve economics. Overall, these results suggest that continued innovation in feedstock logistics, process integration, and market development will be critical to achieving economically viable and scalable bioproducts.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Towards cost-competitive middle distillate fuels from ethanol within a market-flexible C2 platform-based biorefinery concept

Ethanol to middle distillates (ETMD) is a promising pathway to produce sustainable liquid fuels to decarbonize the hard-to-electrify transportation sectors due to (1) the abundant sugar/starch and lignocellulosic biomass, (2) the existing deployment scale of fuel ethanol production (similar to 29 billion gallons per year globally), and (3) emerging opportunities in C2+ alcohol synthesis from CO2. Here we report a conceptual market-responsive biorefinery centered around a new ETMD pathway based on one-step ethanol to butene-rich olefins (ETO) over a Cu-Zn-Y/Beta catalyst. Specifically, this ethanol conversion pathway comprises one-step ETO, oligomerization, and hydrotreating. This ETO is distinct from that in the conventional ethanol-to-jet process which is based on two-step ethanol to ethylene and ethylene oligomerization to butenes. Butene-rich olefins can be shifted to butadiene-rich products by simply changing the reaction atmosphere from hydrogen to inert gas over the same ETO catalyst. Leveraging the experimental results, baseline techno-economic analysis (TEA) and sensitivity analysis indicate that the ethanol conversion cost is $0.60 per gallon gasoline equivalent (GGE), with opportunities for further cost reduction via improving the liquid hydrocarbon yield and space velocities, and process optimization on balancing dewatering of ethanol feed prior to the ETO step. The minimum fuel selling price (MFSP) of liquid hydrocarbons derived from corn starch ethanol with butadiene as coproduct is $1.64 per GGE, in the range that is cost competitive with petroleum kerosene-type jet fuel. Projected MFSP for cellulosic ethanol (corn stover) derived hydrocarbons is below $3.00 per GGE and co-production of butadiene further reduces the MFSP to $1.70 per GGE. The Well-to-Wake life-cycle analysis indicates that 85% greenhouse gas emission reduction can be achieved when using corn stover compared to petroleum reference and the associated carbon credits will provide significant economic incentives to favor the cellulosic ethanol-derived hydrocarbon fuels. This study demonstrates a low-cost pathway to middle distillate fuels leveraging existing ethanol infrastructure, where catalysis innovation drives the reduction of process complexity and flexible coproduction of a value-added chemical product.

Zhang, Junyan↗
DOE OSTI2022

Comparative Technoeconomic Analysis of Pathways for Electrochemical Reduction of CO 2 with Methanol to Produce Methyl Formate

Electrochemical CO 2 reduction has promise as a technology that could help society reach carbon neutrality while producing valuable fuels and chemicals. Herein, the electrochemical synthesis of methyl formate, a product not observed in aqueous CO 2 electrolysis, has been analyzed by a rigorous technoeconomic model to evaluate its commercial viability. Methyl formate synthesis has been demonstrated with high faradaic efficiency through the electroreduction of CO 2 in methanol. Four competing approaches were analyzed: (1) Electroreduction of captured CO 2 in a dual CH 3 OH/H 2 O electrolyzer, (2) Direct electroreduction of flue gas CO 2 in a dual CH 3 OH/H 2 O electrolyzer, (3) Electroreduction of captured CO 2 in a CH 3 OH/CH 3 OH electrolyzer, and (4) Electroreduction of captured CO 2 in a H 2 O/H 2 O electrolyzer with a downstream CH 3 OH reactor. Sensitivity analyses, cost contour plots, and comparison plots were generated. The dual methanol/water electrolysis approach was the most cost-competitive, with a levelized cost of methyl formate below the present market price. Here, the all-methanol electrolysis route was more expensive due to increased methanol consumption and greater distillation costs. Methyl formate production through aqueous CO 2 electrolysis to formic acid with a secondary esterification reaction was by far the most expensive approach, primarily due to the energy-intensive nature of distilling formic acid from water.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2022

Economic analysis of the benefits to petroleum refiners for low carbon boosted spark ignition biofuels

A refinery modeling framework is developed to estimate the benefits of blending high-quality biofuels directly with refinery gasoline components for attaining a premium grade fuel (also termed as Co-Optima Boosted SI gasoline here). Our results change the paradigm of bio-blendstocks (BBs) being competitors to fossil components, by identifying opportunities for refineries to add value to their product slate, from some favorable BB properties. This potential value can be characterized by calculating the breakeven value (BEV), as defined down below. The proposed modeling framework incorporates extensive data from (1) projected product over the next few decades, (2) crude oil and refinery products pricing, and (3) fuel specifications. The complete refinery models serve as a basis for assessing the value of biofuels, assuming profitability remains the same for representative petroleum refinery configurations. Our assessment showed wide range of variation of biofuels BEV from $\$$20-$\$$120/bbl, within the considered blending level and crude prices. Further, the BEV was correlated with the fuel octane ratings such as octane numbers (research, RON and motor octane numbers, MON) and both antiknock index (AKI, average of RON and MON) and sensitivity (S, difference between RON and MON), with a slightly higher correlation with the sensitivity. However, the expected decrease in gasoline demand for the upcoming years could negatively impact biofuels demand and value, in a business-as-usual scenario. Our analysis also showed a more valuable bio-blendstocks incorporation in smaller refineries since they can enhance the capabilities for producing specialty, high-value fuels/products, and introduce high octane-barrels into otherwise constrained blending operations. Additional implications towards refiners include opportunities to rebalance operations, access to high-value fuel markets, and synchronization with broader transportation industry trends. Furthermore, results indicate the value of Co-Optima boosted spark ignition (BSI) efficiency gains can extend to refiners to incentivize decarbonization and diversified feedstock production.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Catalytic Upgrading of Carbohydrates in Waste Streams to Hydrocarbons: Paper Sludge to Fuel Project (PStF)

This research, funded by the Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office (DOE BETO), aims to understand the barriers and assess opportunities for transforming carbohydrates in paper sludge, a solid lignocellulosic residue from the pulp and paper industry. The goal is to turn the paper sludge into a liquid hydrocarbon product that can be blended into jet fuel, both economically and sustainably. Research groups at North Carolina State University, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Yale University collaborated synergistically, leveraging their expertise in pulp and paper operations, biomass deconstruction, and catalytic upgrading to propose a pathway that efficiently captures the energy in paper sludge. Findings from this study could potentially contribute to advancing biomass conversion technologies, aligning with the efforts of the U.S. DOE BETO. This report documents the experimental and simulation results of a biochemical and catalytic pathway designed to transform paper sludge into a liquid hydrocarbon product. The process involves a sequence of seven steps, including ash removal, carbohydrate enzymatic hydrolysis, sugar dehydration, solvent recovery, aldol-condensation between furans and ketone, hydrogenation, and hydrodeoxygenation to obtain a hydrocarbon blend in the ~C10 range. The experimental efforts from the initiation of the project were guided by techno-economic analysis (TEA) and sensitivity analysis results including around seventy-eight operational parameters. This methodology facilitated the efficient use of resources over time. This study relies on detailed process simulations and TEA to determine the minimum fuel selling price (MFSP) for the hydrocarbon fuel product. Preliminary TEA results led to the evaluation of eight case studies considering alternative dehydration co-solvents, operational settings, and biorefinery layouts. Finally, the life cycle assessment of twenty-eight scenarios, comparing various dehydration co-solvents, fuel sources, chemical feedstock sources, side product utilization, and other process settings, was conducted. Landfilling scenarios with and without landfill gas recovery were also estimated, analyzed, and compared.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Revenue Analysis for Energy Storage Systems in the United States

In this work we evaluate the potential revenue from energy storage using historical electricity prices, forward-looking projections of hourly electricity prices, and actual reported revenue. This analysis examines the impact of storage characteristics, specifically duration and round-trip efficiency, as well as locational elements of storage revenue within the current and projected U.S. power system. Figure ES-1 illustrates the revenue for a 1 MW storage system in seven market regions with durations range from 1 hour to 12 hours using both historical and forward-looking price data. The historical analysis covers more than 500 price nodes for each market region, while the forward-looking analysis includes balancing areas under different 10 scenarios of the electricity generation mix. The results indicate that the revenues consistently increase with duration, though the marginal value declines as duration grows. Moreover, the range of revenue depends on the system's operational location, and the electricity generation mix changes for future years. This range also widens with increased durations. In addition, the sensitivity analysis of round-trip efficiency reveals that as efficiency improves, system revenue increases, though the value of better round-trip efficiency declines as at higher efficiency levels.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Backup power or bill savings? How electricity tariffs impact residential solar-plus-storage usage in the United States

Adoption of paired solar-plus-storage systems has accelerated in recent years, driven by both the demand for backup power and a desire to manage utility bills. Tradeoffs between those two uses can arise through the reserve setting on the battery storage system, which serves to maintain a minimum state of charge in case of a power interruption. Our paper applies an economic framework to evaluate this tradeoff in terms of changes in bill savings and customer reliability value across reserve levels, considering how those tradeoffs depend on the underlying electricity rate structure and levels. The analysis is based on a representative set of load profiles, solar profiles, tariff designs, and stochastic power interruption events across ten different regions in the United States. We find that the opportunity cost of holding storage capacity in reserve, in terms of foregone bill reductions, outweighs any gains in reliability value from mitigated power interruptions in the majority of customer situations. Higher storage reserve levels increase total customer value only in specific circumstances, such as for customers with inferior reliability (10x average interruptions), with a very high value of lost load ($50/kWh), and with tariff or interconnection rules that disallow grid charging. However, even this result is dampened when considering tariff designs with higher price differentials that increase the opportunity cost of holding storage in reserve (e.g. import/export or time-of-use rates). Allowing grid charging in tariffs essentially eliminates the necessity to hold any storage in reserve in all sensitivity cases explored.

Electric resilience↗
DOE OSTI2021

Iteration-based Linearized Distribution-level Locational Marginal Price for Three-phase Unbalanced Distribution Systems

Distributed energy resources (DERs) are rocking the utilities’ business landscape. It calls for competitive market environments that incentivize DERs to form maximum operating efficiency. Among proposed pricing schemes, distribution-level locational marginal price (DLMP) is effective in signaling the marginal generation cost differences driven by energy losses and network constraints. It can be derived from a distribution-level optimal power flow (OPF) framework, as it essentially presents the sensitivity of optimized generation cost towards incremental loads. However, due to the high resistance-to-inductance ratio and unbalanced characteristics of distribution networks, computational affordable DLMPs are highly challenged. This article provides a linear-approximated DLMP that can be solved efficiently and generalized to account for reactive power flow, three-phase unbalanced loads and meshed network structure. The successive linear programming technique is introduced to enhance the model accuracy. Case studies on an IEEE 123-Bus system validate its accuracy against a nonlinear benchmark and capability in offering proper incentives.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Hierarchical Model-Free Transactive Control of Building Loads to Support Grid Services

Residential buildings consume 4.4 quads of electricity annually, approximately 37% of the total electricity consumption in the United States. This represents a vast resource that can be used for demand management and other ancillary services. This project aims to develop a robust, scalable hierarchical transactional control mechanism incorporating elements of model-free control (MFC) and game theory to harness buildings to provide ancillary services to the grid. This approach is being taken to address the challenges of incorporating traditional transactional control schemes into existing buildings. The challenges include small individual building sizes requiring aggregation of many buildings, unpredictable energy usage that makes model identification difficult, and satisfying the sensitive occupant comfort constraints. In the proposed approach, by separating the control mechanism into two layers above and below the load aggregator, MFC can be used below the aggregator to modulate flexible building loads in response to pricing signals with guaranteed performance. This allows the burden of identifying an accurate model of the system to be shifted to the above-aggregator layer, where fluctuations in individual building usage have less impact on predicted building system behavior. Game theory concepts can then be used to determine pricing curves and control signals among regional aggregators. Managing this control in a game-theoretic approach will allow us to build in financial incentives that increase customer engagement. Additionally, the usage of MFC necessitates less burdensome computational and communication requirements, thus, it is easily deployable on small, embedded devices. In a broader sense, developing a strategy capable of effectively incorporating residential and small commercial buildings will allow greater throughput of existing and emerging grid services in addition to future transactive energy grid management methods. Using MFC within a hierarchical control architecture will allow the shifting of existing forecasting challenges to an aggregate level, where dynamics are slower and more predictable. This will enable a smooth interface between the grid services requests of utilities and the reliable control required by participating buildings. MFC, which supports distributed control architecture, permits a scalable solution that can be deployed to neighborhood-size systems as well as individual buildings. This project focuses on three objectives: (1) developing the mathematical framework, algorithm toolkit, and software toolset of the two-layer transactive control testbed; (2) developing a scalable solution for application over many residential and small-size commercial buildings with sparse distributed communication; and (3) field testing and implementation on hardware of the control strategies developed in the previous two objectives. The research and development activities are focused and designed to be impactful within the relevant 2025 targets timeframe. An open-source control framework for exploiting variability and dispatchability of building loads will be delivered as the outcome of the project. This capability enables greater participation of loads in electricity markets and ancillary services that are both useful for the utility and financially beneficial for building owners.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Technoeconomic Analysis of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) with WS 2 /Carbon Composite as Counter Electrode Material

Exploration of clean and renewable energy materials is necessary due to the coming energy crisis and environmental problems. Solar energy is one of the favorable energy sources because of the continuous energy reservoir and its affluence. Silicon-based solar devices are expensive due to their complicated production process, which limits this technology for urban and other commercial applications. Among the third generation of solar cells, Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) have attracted widespread attention as potential cost-effective alternatives to silicon-based solar cells. In this paper, the commercializing potential of the DSSCs is investigated. A module is introduced where the materials, equipment, and distribution of direct manufacturing costs are calculated. The manufacturing costs and the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of these DSSCs for a system lifetime of 25 years were determined to be USD 22.40 per m 2 and USD 0.0438 per kWh and the module price of this technology is USD 0.18 per W and the total installed system cost is USD 0.88 per W in Kansas which suggest that this PV technology could challenge other leading PV technologies.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Solid Sorbent Cost Sensitivity Analysis: A Framework for UNF Reprocessing Sorbent Cost Comparison

Solid sorbents have been the subject of research and development across the U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory complex for many years. They are generally accepted as a safer alternative to cryogenic distillation for noble gas capture, and they present an easier pathway in development of long-term waste forms after iodine capture. As more types of sorbents have been proposed for capture of volatile radionuclides, it has become necessary to compare them based on performance and cost criteria. This report details cost and performance information for three promising sorbents and provides a cost sensitivity analysis. The goal of this analysis is to establish a framework which can be utilized to directly compare future sorbents, with differing properties, to the sorbents discussed in this report. Direct comparison is instrumental to making informed decisions to efficiently guide research and minimize laborious detours. In all cases, sorbent capacity is a major cost driver as it influences the mass of sorbent, operational footprint, and disposal cost requirements., However, sorbent price can greatly increase the cost of a capture technology. For sorbents used in krypton capture, the purity of krypton released to storage is the highest cost driver.

11 - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Bipolar Membrane Electrodialyzers as Flexible Demand Response Resources: Co-Optimization of Cost Savings and Product Formation

Bipolar membrane electro dialyzers (BPMED) are widely used for chemical production and processing, including in the emerging ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) industry. In this paper, we explore the potential of BPMED devices as flexible electrochemical loads within power system operations. Using a multi-objective optimization framework, we evaluate BPMED operation across 24-hour and monthly horizons to examine how dispatch strategies respond to electricity price and grid conditions. Simulation results show that altering the relative weights of the choices in the objective function strongly shape the operating patterns, with cost-focused strategies that suppress the operation during peak prices. Furthermore, we propose alternative formulations that optimize operations to achieve both cost savings and alignment with periods of lower grid-side carbon intensity (CI), as low grid-side CI is key to maximize OAE efficiency. Additionally, a detailed sensitivity analysis highlights the importance of device properties, where low area-specific resistance (ASR) of membrane and high current efficiency (CE) are observed to jointly unlock cost-effective operation. However, even modest shunt efficiency losses are observed to erode performance and decrease system value. Importantly, the analysis demonstrates that BPMED can serve as a controllable and flexible demand response resource, shifting load to support multiple grid-side objectives, including (but not limited to) renewable integration, alleviate peak demand, and provide co-benefits for system reliability. These findings underscore BPMED’s dual role as a process technology and a grid-supporting asset, pointing to promising pathways for operational optimization of multiple objectives.

Bhattacharya, Saptarshi (ORCID:0000000308902060)↗
DOE OSTI2023

Time-Dependent Electric Bus and Charging Station Deployment Problem

Battery electric buses (BEBs) have gained popularity due to their emission-free and energy-efficient features. Many transit authorities worldwide have set goals to gradually replace their bus fleets with BEBs. Considering the potential decline in BEB battery and charger prices, this study proposes a time-dependent bus fleet transition model to determine the optimal bus fleet transition plan, which includes selecting the bus lines to be electrified, determining the timing and type of BEBs to be purchased, and deploying on-route fast chargers and depot chargers. The model is a bi-objective integer linear program that considers the trade-off between electrified transit mileages and bus electrification costs. A normalized normal constraint method is applied to solve the bi-objective optimization model. The effectiveness of the proposed model is tested using a real-world bus network. Additionally, sensitivity analyses are conducted to better understand the impact of different parameter values on the optimal solutions. Our proposed model can provide transit authorities with a powerful tool to make informed decisions about their BEB fleet replacement plans.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2021

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↗