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DOE OSTI2023

Scenarios for Future Energy Systems

Energy systems in the U.S. and globally have continuously changed and expanded over the past 200 years, from animal and biomass based energy to electricity and petroleum for heat, light, transportation, and industries of all kinds. The most recent two decades have experienced a significant increase in the use of natural gas, solar, and wind energy, as well as energy efficiency, due to both technology breakthroughs and public policy. With history as a guide, we can expect on-going transformation of our energy system in future decades, including increased electrification and advanced energy technologies, ideally helping meet societal goals of reducing pollution, improving quality of human life, and preserving ecosystems. Scenario modeling is an important tool for planning energy system transformations toward specific goals - such as net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, 100% renewable energy, or energy security - particularly when there are multiple options, conflicting objectives, and significant unknowns about a path forward. This presentation will review the history of energy transitions and the future policy and societal objectives on energy. Then it will summarize multiple scenario studies of future energy systems, with a focus on "100% studies" and the challenges to meeting those objectives. It will also outline of a few of the technologies being researched now that could advance the ongoing energy transition.

ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY,SOLAR ENERGY,↗

DOE OSTI2020

A regional nuclear conflict would compromise global food security

A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan could ignite fires large enough to emit more than 5 Tg of soot into the stratosphere. Climate model simulations have shown severe resulting climate perturbations with declines in global mean temperature by 1.8 °C and precipitation by 8%, for at least 5 y. Here we evaluate impacts for the global food system. Six harmonized state-of-the-art crop models show that global caloric production from maize, wheat, rice, and soybean falls by 13 (±1)%, 11 (±8)%, 3 (±5)%, and 17 (±2)% over 5 y. Total single-year losses of 12 (±4)% quadruple the largest observed historical anomaly and exceed impacts caused by historic droughts and volcanic eruptions. Colder temperatures drive losses more than changes in precipitation and solar radiation, leading to strongest impacts in temperate regions poleward of 30°N, including the United States, Europe, and China for 10 to 15 y. Integrated food trade network analyses show that domestic reserves and global trade can largely buffer the production anomaly in the first year. Persistent multiyear losses, however, would constrain domestic food availability and propagate to the Global South, especially to food-insecure countries. By year 5, maize and wheat availability would decrease by 13% globally and by more than 20% in 71 countries with a cumulative population of 1.3 billion people. In view of increasing instability in South Asia, this study shows that a regional conflict using <1% of the worldwide nuclear arsenal could have adverse consequences for global food security unmatched in modern history.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2025

Learning from Arctic Microgrids: Cost and Resiliency Projections for Renewable Energy Expansion with Hydrogen and Battery Storage

Electricity in rural Alaska is provided by more than 200 standalone microgrid systems powered predominantly by diesel generators. Incorporating renewable energy generation and storage to these systems can reduce their reliance on costly imported fuel and improve sustainability; however, uncertainty remains about optimal grid architectures to minimize cost, including how and when to incorporate long-duration energy storage. This study implements a novel, multi-pronged approach to assess the techno-economic feasibility of future energy pathways in the community of Kotzebue, which has already successfully deployed solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, and battery storage systems. Using real community load, resource, and generation data, we develop a series of comparison models using the HOMER Pro software tool to evaluate microgrid architectures to meet over 90% of the annual community electricity demand with renewable generation, considering both battery and hydrogen energy storage. We find that near-term planned capacity expansions in the community could enable over 50% renewable generation and reduce the total cost of energy. Additional build-outs to reach 75% renewable generation are shown to be competitive with current costs, but further capacity expansion is not currently economical. We additionally include a cost sensitivity analysis and a storage capacity sizing assessment that suggest hydrogen storage may be economically viable if battery costs increase, but large-scale seasonal storage via hydrogen is currently unlikely to be cost-effective nor practical for the region considered. While these findings are based on data and community priorities in Kotzebue, we expect this approach to be relevant to many communities in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions working to improve energy reliability, sustainability, and security.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

DOE OSTI2020

Optimal Sizing of Resilience Solutions for the U.S. Army Reserve

Power or water outages in buildings threaten the ability of the military to support surrounding communities during natural disasters. Outages can last for days, weeks or months. Typical solutions include very expensive batteries and onsite generation that are sized based on historical power needs. The U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) has teamed up with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to develop a simulation framework that optimizes future power needs to reduce the cost of resilience solutions. The approach starts with the building. Power needs during an emergency event are simulated at the building end-use level, then loads are reduced through the selection of life cycle cost-effective building-level technology improvements. These new optimized loads are then fed into a microgrid sizing tool that dynamically constructs many different combinations of solar photovoltaic, battery storage, and generator resources to meet the load for hundreds of statistically generated outage scenarios. Six site assessments completed by USAR and PNNL in 2019 have resulted in a 1-14% reduction in overall investment when optimizing the buildings first before determining the generation requirements. This approach helps the Army secure critical missions and provide a 14 day-minimum supply of necessary energy and water in the most efficient manner.

buidlings, efficiency, resilience, FEDS, MCOR↗

DOE OSTI2024

Achieving Cyber-Resilience for Power Systems using a Learning, Model-Assisted Blockchain Framework

The secure integration and management of distributed energy resources (DER) and power aggregators in the electric grid requires secure communications and a physics-aware Command and Control (C2) strategy. A Blockchain (BC)-based overlay network was developed to provide a security layer for the existing power grid network that mitigates risks in current and legacy network and C2 protocols. By integrating a Model-Assisted Machine Learning (MAML) framework with a Secure Blockchain Overlay Network (SBON) a defense-in-depth strategy was achieved. In our approach, the MAML framework leveraged a smart contract framework to gather network data and learn the dynamics of DER to develop detection strategies for attacks targeting sensors and actuators used by DER. The MAML framework learned dynamical systems models for individual DERs to detect sensor attacks. For DER we utilized a Digital Twin (DT) to accelerate the learning process for a model resistant to stealthy attacks. The project created DT for PV inverters and BESS. The DTs were coupled with a model-assisted, data-driven learning of DER behavior. Specifically, we evaluated architectures for model-based learning with model-free fine-tuning. Additionally, differential privacy techniques were used to obfuscate data, while still allowing the computation of attack detection results based on obfuscated data. The SBON developed leverages a private permissioned blockchain network orchestrated with the Hyperledger Fabric framework. To connect the cyber world, which orchestrates the blockchain fabric, and the physical world where the power network resides, we developed a system implementation to enable the secure interaction of the physical world and the abstracted blockchain.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2024

Grid connection barriers to renewable energy deployment in the United States

Bulk-power grid connection is an emerging bottleneck to the entry of wind, solar, and storage but has been understudied due to a lack of data. We create and analyze two novel interconnection datasets with more than 38,000 project-level observations that provide new information documenting interconnection challenges in the United States. Active grid connection requests are more than double the total installed capacity of the US power plant fleet (2,600 vs. 1,280 GW). The time required to secure a connection has increased by 70% over the last decade, and withdrawal rates remain high at 80%, suggesting a constrained transmission system that jeopardizes energy transition targets. Wide distributions of interconnection costs indicate the inherent uncertainty of the interconnection process. Interconnection requests that identify large transmission upgrades tend to withdraw from the process. These findings suggest the need for interconnection reforms, tighter links between long-term transmission planning and project-level interconnection processes, and more interconnection outcome transparency.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Evaluating Recursive Blind Forecast Against API and Baseline: A Puerto Rican Case Study on Solar Irradiance for Normal and Extreme Weather

This paper leverages ongoing work in a community microgrid in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico to forecast global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and compare performance in normal and extreme weather. Given a positive correlation of 0.98 between GHI and PV power, forecasting GHI can be an effective, indirect forecast of photovoltaic (PV) power, especially in microgrids where the end-users, owners, operators, or other stakeholders are reluctant to share data for training or validation due to privacy and security concerns. A recursive one-shot (termed as "blind") forecast is, hence, formulated, wherein a gradient-boosted regression tree (GBR) is built to forecast GHI for a 7-day horizon in normal weather, and a 2-day horizon in extreme weather. To demonstrate its resilience, the architecture is trained on normal and hurricane weather GHI from 2002-2022. It is generalized on February 9-16, 2023, and on the landfall of Hurricane Nicole (Nov 4-5, 2022), respectively. Forecasts from GBR are compared against that from a satellite-based API resource and three baselines: persistence, averaging, and exponential smoothing. Results show GBR and persistence outperform sophisticated API in both types of weather for this case study.

Sundararajan, Aditya↗

DOE OSTI2020

Multi-Timescale Integrated Dynamic and Scheduling Model (MIDAS-Solar)

Solar photovoltaic (PV) installations have experienced unprecedented growth in the United States. PV will become not only an energy producer but also a necessary provider of ancillary services at multiple timescales. Conventional methods to simulate power system operations - such as long-term production simulation (which typically considers schedules from hours to minutes by using an optimization framework) and short-term transient studies (which simulate dynamics from seconds to sub-seconds using state variables and differential equations) are not sufficient for studying the multiple-timescale variation of solar generation and its impact on system reliability. Long-term system economics and short-term system dynamics are highly coupled, particularly when the penetration level of renewable generation is extremely high, because the uncertainty and variability of solar generation will impact both power systems steady-state and dynamic performance. This project helps meet and exceed the Solar Energy Technologies Office goal of systems integration by directly addressing this stability and reliability challenge for electric grid planning and operation. This will be accomplished by developing temporally comprehensive, closed-loop simulation models that seamlessly simulate power systems operations from economic scheduling (day-ahead to hours) to dynamic response analysis (seconds to sub-seconds). Both a multi-timescale grid model and an integrated PV model will be developed in this project to accurately study the impacts of PV variability and uncertainty on system reliability at multiple timescales. Using quasi-dynamic simulation methods and data-driven security assessment (DSA) criteria will allow the dynamic characteristics of PV to be fed forward into longer-timescale scheduling models for a complete understanding of the effect of short-term PV dynamics on bulk systems operations (e.g., reserve scheduling and deployment). Upon completion of the proposed model, this project will help operators accurately assess system reliability by deploying energy and reserve scheduling under critical contingency conditions and studying interactions among all types of essential reliability services provided by modern PV power plants.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

5G Securely Energized and Resilient: (5G-SER) (Final Report)

NREL's work on 5G integration with physical power systems (versus simulated systems demonstrated in task 3) under 5G-Securely Energized and Resilient (5G-SER) achieved a major milestone in with the completion of Task 4 activities. After many months (6+) of planning and development along with scaling challenges along the way, a full 5G end-to-end network with physical hardware components (physical inverter, physical power panel, physical battery, etc.) was deployed in a containerized environment. In parallel, a distributed controls architecture for a microgrid powering 5G resources was also successfully modified from its previous instantiation for a simulated environment to work with these physical components. These accomplishments set the stage to use newly setup 5G technology with physical microgrid components to test the feasibility of 5G wireless with physical systems to enable resilient communications between controls and distributed solar and storage resources while exploring ways to configure 5G components to survive power disturbances. The results detailed in the report below show that even utilizing physical components, 5G wireless systems were able to provide resilient results that were similar to the results from the simulated environment Task 3).

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2026

SIRENOpt.jl

SAND2026-22945O SIRENOpt.jl is a Julia software package for prototype hybrid power, storage, and platform dynamics. It integrates solar, wind, wave, hydrokinetic, diesel, generator, converter, battery, hydrogen, desalination, mooring, and floating-platform model interfaces in an automatic-differentiation-friendly simulation framework. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Michelen Strofer, Carlos [Sandia National Lab. (SN↗

DOE OSTI2020

Risk-Based Dynamic Contingency Analysis Applied to Puerto Rico Electric Infrastructure

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity and Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy have funded DOE National Laboratories to perform modeling, analysis, and high-level design of resilience-enhancement options for the power grid of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the national laboratories contributing to the DOE effort. Under this funding, PNNL completed Phase I of their analysis in 2018, which identified high-priority transmission enhancements derived from detailed dynamic cascading analysis of severe contingencies, including a hurricane scenario example. This report describes additional analysis completed under Phase II, which was performed over 2019. The PNNL team applied decades of experience making complex power systems more resilient, reliable, secure, flexible, affordable and sustainable, with partners in government and industry. In this report, PNNL presents the Phase II analysis, in which a risk-based dynamic contingency analysis approach to evaluate impact of several hurricane scenarios was developed. This approach was used to identify high-priority enhancements and test resilience mitigation actions, including the evaluation of high-solar scenarios developed as a result of the 2019 Puerto Rico Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2021

Managing Cyber Supply Chain Risk for Renewable Energy Technologies

On July 1, 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) hosted a virtual workshop facilitated by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Cybersecurity supply chain experts, researchers, and leaders in government and industry came together to share information on current and future challenges in securing emerging technologies and technical architecture. From a cybersecurity perspective, we need to move from a cybersecurity approach that focuses principally on legacy asset owners to one that incorporates more emphasis on end-point device manufacturers and third-party integrators. Cybersecurity for the global digital supply chain for manufacturers of consumer end-point devices—such as smart solar inverters and smart electric vehicle (EV) chargers—will be critical to the future cyber health of the grid.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Enabling Cybersecurity, Situational Awareness and Resilience in Distribution Grids with High Penetration of Photovoltaics (CARE-PV) (Final Report)

Since legacy distribution systems have very limited visibility beyond the substation, high penetration of PV at the grid edge presents some unique operational challenges. One approach to address these challenges is to use information from advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and µPMUs. However, exploiting this information is impacted by a number of factors, including multi-timescale measurements, volume of data generated, communication network impairments (e.g., information loss and latency) and susceptibility to cyber-attacks. Therefore, one of the critical tasks involved in the management of a distribution grid is to develop complete situational awareness by integrating cyber-security mechanisms with state estimation strategies and leveraging this situational awareness to assure energy services at strategic locations while exploiting AMI/PV inverter/ µPMU data. This CARE-PV project addresses the fundamental challenges in situational awareness and resilience to cyber and physical vectors by exploiting the synergy between innovative modeling, estimation, data analytics, testing and validation using smart PV inverters designed at K-State and facilities at NREL. Specifically, the project involved the development, testing and validation of the following novel enabling technologies: (Thrust 1) Resilience to cyber vectors that impact data integrity was addressed via a two-level defense strategy that combines cyber intrusion detection using self-learning, cooperative smart PV inverters, and a novel moving target defense framework to combat data integrity attacks. (Thrust 2) Resilience to cyber-physical vectors that impact situational awareness by limiting data availability was addressed via novel centralized and decentralized, sparsity-based static and dynamic state estimation approaches that enhance observability even when the underlying system is unobservable. (Thrust 3) Leveraging a unique probabilistic sensitivity analysis approach accompanied by one-of-a-kind dominant influencer set computation, the vulnerability of critical infrastructure at strategic locations was evaluated so that proactive PV-based control strategies can be used to support operations under normal/outage scenarios. These CARE-PV project innovations were demonstrated on both small-scale IEEE and larger utility-scale testbeds (Thrust 4). Feedback from Industry Advisory Board members was used to formulate a commercialization pathway for a subset of CARE-PV technologies. These CARE-PV technologies will ultimately lead to reliable and secure, large-scale integration of renewable energy and mitigate the risk of energy disruption resulting from cyber incidents and other emerging threats within the energy environment.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

Photovoltaic Analysis and Response Support (PARS) Platform for Solar Situational Awareness and Resiliency Services

The project's primary objective is to develop a digital-twin based Photovoltaic (PV) Analysis and Response Support (PARS) platform, which aims to provide real-time situational awareness and optimal response plans. This platform is designed to enhance the performance of hybrid PV systems, making them competitive with or even superior to conventional generation resources. The PARS platform enabled the project team to develop and evaluate an extensive suite of grid support functionalities for the hybrid PV systems to enhance grid performance, across key areas including visibility, dispatchability, security, resilience, and reliability. Given the global push toward achieving 100% clean energy by 2035, there is a significant increase in the integration of inverter-based resources (IBRs) throughout the energy grid. Effectively managing the inherent variability and uncertainty associated with IBRs is crucial for ensuring cost-effectiveness, reliability, and security in both the main grid and islanded microgrids. Constrained to a limited array of IEEE test systems or standard feeder models, traditional IBR modeling struggles to assimilate new field data, accurately reflect system dynamics, and adapt to the evolving energy landscape. In our project, we embraced a Digital Twin (DT) strategy for crafting the PARS platform. A digital twin acts as a precise virtual counterpart of a physical system, built on historical data and continuously honed with real-time insights. This enables the high-fidelity DT to accurately mirror current system operations and forecast future scenarios. Consequently, the PARS platform becomes an ideal environment for testing and refining monitoring, control, power, and energy management algorithms designed to boost hybrid PV system performance. The defining feature of the PARS platform, distinguishing it from other advanced simulation tools, is its exceptional adaptability. This is achieved by employing actual network topologies and utilizing real-time field data for fine-tuning and calibration, ensuring a close emulation of real-world conditions. The project deliverables include: 1) High-fidelity IBR models and tools for real-time parameterization, utilizing real-time field measurements to refine IBR models for enhanced accuracy and performance; 2) Grid-forming and Grid-following capabilities to deliver resilience services, including blackstart, voltage and frequency support, cold-load pick-up, power reserves, and three-phase load balancing across grid-connected and microgrid settings; 3) Machine learning-based forecasting tools and methods for generating synthetic data and topologies, creating diverse and realistic simulation environments for evaluating varied operational scenarios; 4) Advanced microgrid power and energy management algorithms for optimizing the integration and operation of PV, storage, and demand response resources within both feeder and community scales. The power grid data sets are provided by four utility companies in North Carolina and the New York Power Administration. Acting as industry advisors, our industry partners communicated stakeholder needs and regulatory standards to the research teams, aiding technology transfer by incorporating the developed methodologies into their daily operations. This collaboration ensures that the PARS platform, functioning as a power system digital twin, enhances our understanding of IBR dynamic behaviors and enables the development and evaluation of IBR control functions that match or exceed the capabilities of conventional synchronous generators.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2021

G3P3 Phase 3 Project Execution Plan. Issue 1

The National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) at Sandia National Laboratories New Mexico (SNL/NM) developed this Project Execution Plan (PEP) to document its process for executing, monitoring, controlling and closing-out Phase 3 of the Gen 3 Particle Pilot Plant G3P3. This plan serves as a resource for stakeholders who wish to be knowledgeable of project objectives and how they will be accomplished. The plan is intended to be used by the development partners, principal investigator, and the federal project director. Project objectives are derived from the mission needs statement, and an integrated project team assists in development of the PEP. This plan is a living document and will be updated throughout the project to describe current and future processes and procedures. The scope of the PEP covers: Cost, schedule, and scope Project reporting Staffing plan Quality assurance plan Environment, safety, security, and health This document is a tailored approach for the Facilities Management and Operations Center (FMOC) to meet the project management principles of DOE Order 413.3B, Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets , and DOE G 413.3-15, DOE Guide for Project Execution Plans. This document will elaborate on content as knowledge of the project is gained or refined.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2023

A Clean Energy Korea by 2035

The current global energy crisis has massive implications for the people and economy of South Korea (Korea), where at least 90% of energy use depends on foreign fossil fuels. Clean electricity accounts for only 39% of total generation, with electricity demand expected to increase 30% by 2035. This study shows that Korea can achieve 80% clean electricity by 2035 by capitalizing on rapid technological improvements and decreasing costs of solar, wind, and battery technology. Doing so would slightly lower electricity supply costs, significantly reduce dependence on imported natural gas and coal, and dramatically cut power sector emissions. Further, this study finds that Korea’s power grid under a clean energy scenario will maintain reliability without coal generation or new natural gas plants. To realize these significant economic, environmental, and energy security benefits, policies such as an 80% clean electricity standard by 2035 and corresponding renewable energy deployment goals are required.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2021

Adaptive protection opportunities, gap assessments, and designs

This report provides a comprehensive overview of adaptive protection schemes in use by distribution systems for protection, switching and control on their systems. A significant focus is placed on how existing schemes can be impacted by increasing penetrations of DER as well as how these schemes can enable DER penetrations to increase. EPRI have conducted a survey of member utilities and performed a comprehensive literature review with the goal of baselining the research and identifying gaps with a focus on the issues that were encountered with adaptive protection on real systems. The five adaptive protection applications that are most prevalent on systems today are discussed in detail. These are weather-based fuse-saving, adaptive protection to reduce short-circuit current, adaptive protection for DER, adaptive protection for microgrids, and distribution automation. A broad overview of the technology is given for each scheme. Issues that have been encountered by utilities are highlighted and the safety and reliability impacts are also examined. As distribution systems, intelligent electronic devices, grid equipment and distribution management systems are rapidly evolving, adaptive protection techniques and technologies will become more widely adopted. This report proposes a framework for a conceptual automatic adaptive protection system. EPRI have ongoing research, development and demonstration projects in all of the constituent elements, however challenges remain to link the elements together in a secure and reliable way. EPRI will continue research into automated adaptive protection applications and challenges for the systems of today and future applications to assist system operators in managing the evolving system.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

Temporal complementarity of marine renewables with wind and solar generation: Implications for GB system benefits

Wave and tidal energy have the potential to provide benefits to power systems with high proportions of stochastic renewable generation. This is particularly applicable with wind and solar photovoltaics, as the offsetting of these renewable resources results in more reliable renewable generation. This study utilises ten metrics to quantify the temporal complementarity and supply-demand balancing requirements of the energy mix in Great Britain, to investigate the potential magnitude of these system benefits. Wave and tidal generation profiles are created using historical resource data and hydrodynamic models. The results show that the inclusion of wave and tidal generation creates a renewable energy mix which is more available under multiple conditions: throughout a year of operation; at times of peak demand; for multiple consecutive hourly time periods; and at times when wind and solar generation are not available. Three regional case studies also show that the inclusion of marine energy allows for improved regional supply-demand matching, reducing instances of energy shortage and excess and potentially relieving transmission congestion at particularly constrained locations within GB. Finally, the implications of these findings are discussed in terms of GB wholesale market operation, system balancing and system security.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗