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At least 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Emerging Technologies Review: Water Microgrid

Project 69643 Task 10 - The Air Force Civil Engineer Center has tasked Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with investigating emerging technologies to inform the Air Force’s understanding of the technology and to guide key considerations for implementing technologies that are resilient and alternative sources to the traditional methods used in the Air Force today. This report explores the concept of a water microgrid for deployment at Air Force installations. A water microgrid is a local water system that supplies, treats, and distributes water, with the primary objective to meet mission critical water demand during a disruption of the primary supply. A water microgrid can advance an Air Force installation’s water infrastructure and water resilience by being at the ready for meeting critical missions during a utility outage.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Designing resilient decentralized energy systems: The importance of modeling extreme events and long-duration power outages

Mitigating and adapting to climate change requires decarbonizing electricity while ensuring resilience of supply, since a warming planet will lead to greater extremes in weather and, plausibly, in power outages. Although it is well known that long-duration outages severely impact economies, such outages are usually not well characterized or modeled in grid infrastructure planning tools. Here, we bring together data and modeling techniques and show how they can be used to characterize and model long-duration outages. We illustrate how to integrate outages in planning tools for one promising mode of resilient energy supply—microgrids. Failing to treat these extremes in models can lead to microgrid designs (1) that do not realize their full value of resilience, since models do not see the benefits of protecting against extremes, and (2) that appear reliable on paper yet do not actually protect against extremes. Although utilities record power interruptions, lack of access to that data is hindering research on resilience; making datasets available publicly would substantially aid efforts to improve grid planning tools.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Dynamic Distribution System Restoration Strategy for Resilience Enhancement: Preprint

In electric power distribution systems, distributed energy re-sources (DERs) can act as controllable power sources and support utility operators to minimize power outages after ex-treme weather events (e.g., hurricane, earthquake, wildfire) and thus help enhance the grid's resilience. Meanwhile, the influ-ences of extreme events and the capabilities of DERs are dy-namic and difficult to predict. Hence, the desired distribution system restoration strategy should be able to evolve according to real-time fault/disturbance information and the availabil-ity of DERs. In this paper, we propose a new dynamic distribu-tion system restoration strategy to enhance system resilience against potential hazards. An efficient reconfiguration algo-rithm is developed to eliminate the use of integer variables to relieve the computational burden. Model predictive control is implemented to adjust the system topology and DER opera-tion setpoints based on the updated fault information and DER forecasts. The effectiveness of the proposed restoration model in enhancing distribution system resilience is validated through an IEEE 123-bus test system. Simulation results also validate that the proposed restoration model can mitigate the occurrence of unexpected events and the fluctuations of DERs.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Port Technical Assistance Program: A Proposed Initiative to Support U.S. Ports Through Energy Innovation

This document highlights the crucial importance of the maritime sector within the United States (U.S.) economy, serving as a key node for trade and global goods transportation. U.S. ports are currently grappling with challenges posed by rising shipping demands, the health impacts of diesel fuel reliance, and the technology adoptions of global trade partners due to increasing environmental regulations. This document proposes forming a technical assistance program, led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), to help U.S. ports transition to sustainable energy solutions that not only improve environmental and community outcomes, but also enhance resilience to unexpected weather events and reduce pressure on local utilities. Coordinated by PNNL, this initiative would offer a web-based platform of consolidated resources and tools for comprehensive strategic planning and cost-benefit analysis. It also seeks to establish a collaborative network between ports and national laboratories to facilitate the sharing of best practices. The document suggests that optimizing resource allocation and providing tailored support could be achieved through strategic categorization of ports within this network, with relevant attributes and examples detailed in the report. The anticipated benefits of such a program could include increased efficiency and cost savings in port operations and the advancement of scientific innovation via alternative energy research. Also, it could enhance economic growth and competitiveness in international trade by enabling ports to meet shipping demands and develop resilient critical infrastructure through informed, long-term strategies.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Financing Microgrids in the Federal Sector

Recent high-impact events such as hurricanes and wildfires highlight the need for energy system resilience. One potential impact of these events is the loss of utility grid power to federal sites, negatively affecting the ability to carry out their missions. Depending on the need to sustain critical functions, it may be important to continue operations during an outage of the electric grid, or at least have power restored quickly after the event. One approach to addressing this need is through a microgrid. Microgrids can provide a more reliable solution than the traditional approach of using a backup generator at individual buildings. A microgrid can enhance a site’s electrical power system during normal operations, as well as provide reliable backup power to critical loads when electric utility power is interrupted. Many times, certain components of a microgrid (and potentially the entire system) can be justified economically and paid for out of energy savings or avoided costs. In cases where savings can cover the project costs, one of several privately financed procurement mechanisms may be used to implement the project. Procurement options available to all federal agencies include utility energy services contracts (UESC), energy savings performance contracts (ESPC), and utility services contracts (USC); other mechanisms such as a power purchase agreement (PPA), enhanced use lease (EUL), and utility privatization (UP) may also be useful to agencies that have the authority to use them. Implementing a microgrid in a comprehensive effort that also includes energy efficiency can provide an important savings component, while reducing power requirements for critical loads, thus reducing the cost of the microgrid and associated distributed energy resources (DER). However, it can be difficult to achieve enough savings and avoided costs to cover the entire microgrid system, so leveraging these avoided costs in combination with appropriated funds may be necessary to implement the full project. When a site is deciding if a microgrid is the best solution, activities early in the process include identifying critical loads and existing DERs, conversations with the local electric utility, and implementation options that work best for the agency and site. This paper explores procurement options and agreements that may be useful to federal agencies interested in implementing microgrids at their sites. Microgrid complexities, implementation considerations, and suggestions to get started are also discussed. This information will be most useful to agencies when they are exploring electric energy system resilience options and/or considering different procurement options to meet their needs.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Powering Up Secure and Reliable Operations at the Port of Honolulu's Kapalama Container Terminal

The National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) is providing resilience planning support to the Pasha Group, the operator of Kapalama Container Terminal (KCT) at the Port of Honolulu, by exploring how distributed clean energy resources could help the terminal sustain a 36-hour outage and continue emergency operations. The Department of Energy's Energy Transitions Initiative (ETI) aims to advance self-reliant island and remote communities by promoting resilient, affordable, and sustainable clean energy resources.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
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 OSTI2025

Hierarchical Resilience Planning for Networked Microgrids: A Case Study of Puerto Rico

Microgrids can be designed to enhance the energy resilience of communities and critical infrastructures, such as hospitals, data centers, and communication networks, which are vulnerable to frequent weather-related disruption. Coordinating multiple microgrids in a network can leverage the geographical diversity of load and generation resources while enabling resilient and cost-effective planning of the distribution system. Designing a networked microgrid is complex, involving intricate technical assessment, cost-benefit analysis, site-specific requirements, and the evaluation of existing resources. Therefore, this paper proposes a hierarchical resilience planning framework and performs an extensive techno-economic analysis for the design of a networked microgrid. Hierarchical resilience planning involves technology sizing at an individual community level to meet the critical load and satisfy resilience criteria, and resource optimization at networked microgrid level to provide a higher level of resilience and energy adequacy. A real-world case of Puerto Rico's cooperative microgrid “Microrred de la Montaña” is investigated considering localized electricity tariffs, site-specific demand profiles, solar generation, and existing hydro resources. Multiple optimization scenarios are developed based on the resiliency requirement to estimate the capacity of solar photovoltaic and battery energy storage (BES) to be installed at each substation. The results provide the optimal sizing for individual community and networked microgrid to withstand 1day and 3-day outages along with the criteria for critical load.

13 - HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Variable Resource Resilience: How Systems Experience Increased Resilience from Variable and Hybrid Resources

Variable resources like wind and solar are often seen as detriments to system resilience rather than benefits because they may not be available with the capacities or services required during a high-impact low-frequency (HILF) event, whether that is a physical threat, natural disaster, or cyber attack. However, resilience goals and metrics are inadequate for electric energy delivery systems with inverter-based resources. Examination of this topic reveals that renewable resources are well suited to combat many resilience hazards due to local resource availability. Metrics that demonstrate the resilience value of variable resources are presented and categorized for resource (wind, solar, storage, hybrid) and installation type (bulk utility scale, behind-the-meter, front-of-the-meter, isolated). Distributed and hybrid systems can further enhance resilience benefits my maximizing resource potential for a locality. A case study demonstrating quantitative resilience benefits from wind alone is provided for St. Mary's, AK, which concludes that hundreds of thousands of dollars are saved by the addition of a wind turbine in the face of realistic fuel shortage and extreme winter weather scenarios.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Energy Efficient, Cost-Effective Power and Co-Generation Technologies: Techno-Environmental Analysis

Development of energy solutions for addressing grid resiliency and energy efficiency while lowering greenhouse gas emissions is critical in today’s energy scenario. Chemical energy provides on demand power. Cogeneration technologies offer numerous benefits in meeting the growing energy demand while lowering the impact on environment. Utilization of waste heat from prime movers in conjunction with energy efficient heat pumps and renewable photovoltaics is an attractive approach. Efficient utilization of available resources to support current and future building energy needs targeting grid resiliency, energy and environmental security via co-generation approaches is the focus of this study. A detailed techno-environmental analysis of hybrid system configurations consisting of conventional and emerging technologies utilizing natural gas, electric grid, and renewable power resources along with heat recovery systems and heat pump technologies are analyzed and presented. The key objective is to present integrated system configurations and thermodynamic analysis of various co-generation systems suitable for providing building energy. Design solutions targeting low carbon footprint and high energy efficiency are presented.

Cheekatamarla, Praveen↗
DOE OSTI2026

Planning for Seattle at the Convergence of Resilience and Energy

Grid reliability metrics obscure important temporal, spatial, and categorical considerations for increasing energy resilience. Systemwide or feeder-level outage metrics do not identify which kinds of services are affected by outages, where, and for how long. These outage metrics indicate the impacts of outages but cannot measure the consequences to customers that could result from those outages. The consequences of power outages for surrounding community members are caused by disruptions to electricity-dependent critical services, rather than to electricity itself. Power outages can decrease a community's access to healthcare, fuel, safe indoor temperatures, and provisions like food and water. This project developed critical service access, a new consequence-focused resilience metric that quantifies the relative access to critical services provided to households by distribution infrastructure during normal conditions and major disruptions. We use a spatially granular grid analysis that facilitates targeted resilience interventions; dividing feeders into isolatable sections and combining those sections with the critical service access metric allows us to identify where energy improvements like solar-plus-storage microgrids could create the most benefits for community members by protecting access to food, fuel, health, shelter, and public safety services. We identify locations in a South Seattle study area that could be high priorities for resilience investment and summarize their potential neighborhood-scale resilience benefits. This analysis was complemented by direct feedback from study area residents collect through a survey and focus groups. Results can help utilities understand how and where long power outages can create real consequences for customers, set strategic targets based on that understanding, and measure the potential benefits of energy resilience upgrades for more informed decisions.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2021

San Diego Urban Development: Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Identify Drivers of Extreme Urban Heat and Generate a High-Resolution Vulnerability Index for Urban Planning and Climate Resiliency in San Diego, California

Exposure to heat exacerbated by an increase in urbanization as well as increasing global temperatures has become a growing concern for cities and their residents. Excess heat can cause increased heat-related morbidity, mortality, and energy costs. Vulnerability to heat-related illnesses is oftentimes correlated to demographics, socioeconomic status, and pre-existing health conditions. The City of San Diego, California boasts 1.4 million residents and, like many other major cities, has experienced increases in heat-related hospitalizations and mortality. The burden of urban heat is also not equal amongst communities; areas with lower income and communities of color bear a disproportionate burden. In partnership with the City of San Diego, and American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Thriving Earth Exchange, the DEVELOP team used Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), and ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) imagery to identify areas of highest heat based on land surface temperature from 2015-2020. Our analyses showed that health demographics such as obesity and cardiovascular health were the strongest indicators for heat vulnerability. In addition, various inputs (land use/land cover, tree canopy, and building intensity derived from the City of San Diego data along with albedo from Landsat 8) were used in the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) urban cooling model to investigate changes in cooling rates in current and future scenarios for the city. The model results showed that cooling is expected to occur due to a 5% increase in tree canopy. The City of San Diego can use these results to inform the development of the Climate Resilient San Diego plan and prioritize at-risk communities for cooling interventions.

John Dialesandro↗
DOE OSTI2020

Aging Effect Analysis of PV Inverter Semiconductors for Ancillary Services Support

PV inverters can provide reactive power while generating active power. An ongoing microgrid implementation at Duke Energy actively engages non-utility PVs to generate/absorb reactive power in support of ancillary services to increase microgrid resiliency during extreme events. PV systems are requested to provide reactive power support: 1) in response to grid voltage variation to better regulate the local voltage; or 2) in response to utility incentives, such as following Transactive Energy System (TES) incentives. However, providing ancillary services might shorten the lifetime expectation of PV inverter semiconductors. This paper summarizes the potential impacts on a PV inverter semiconductor's lifetime when providing ancillary services. The analysis presented in this research work shows that providing reactive power support will increase the mean junction temperature and the junction temperature variation of the inverter diodes. This increased junction temperature will eventually lead to shorter diode lifetime. The lifetime estimation of semiconductors is briefly reviewed. The power losses of PV inverter semiconductors are derived as a support analysis to the junction temperature calculation. In addition, the impact of the filtering inductor on the semiconductor current distribution is discussed. The theoretical analysis presented in this research work is supported by simulation results.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Generative Design for Resilience of Interdependent Network Systems

Abstract Interconnected complex systems usually undergo disruptions due to internal uncertainties and external negative impacts such as those caused by harsh operating environments or regional natural disaster events. To maintain the operation of interconnected network systems under both internal and external challenges, design for resilience research has been conducted from both enhancing the reliability of the system through better designs and improving the failure recovery capabilities. As for enhancing the designs, challenges have arisen for designing a robust system due to the increasing scale of modern systems and the complicated underlying physical constraints. To tackle these challenges and design a resilient system efficiently, this study presents a generative design method that utilizes graph learning algorithms. The generative design framework contains a performance estimator and a candidate design generator. The generator can intelligently mine good properties from existing systems and output new designs that meet predefined performance criteria while the estimator can efficiently predict the performance of the generated design for a fast iterative learning process. Case studies results based on synthetic supply chain networks and power systems from the IEEE dataset have illustrated the applicability of the developed method for designing resilient interdependent network systems.

Engineering↗
DOE OSTI2021

Material Selection and Sizing of a Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) for Power Generation in a Self-Powered Heating System

By employing the high temperature heat source to directly generate the electricity needed to power auxiliary systems in a natural gas furnace, boiler or hot water heater, a “self-powered” heating system can provide several benefits. Compared with a traditional furnace, boiler or hot water heater, when overall fuel utilization is kept constant, the self-powered system will have a higher primary energy efficiency, lower operating costs, and dramatically improved building safety and resilience during electric grid outages. Furthermore, a self-powered heating system only has a single utility connection – natural gas, without an electric connection – thus simplifying installation. A thermoelectric generator can be used for direct energy conversion of thermal energy to electricity with no moving parts, which offers a very simple means to provide power for the self-powered heating system, and the operation is without noise or vibration and can thus provide a very long system life. This paper provides an analysis focused on materials selection and the thermal power requirements for a thermoelectric generator (TEG) for use in a self-powered heating system. The dimensionless figure of merit for thermoelectric materials, zT, is used to estimate the optimal efficiency that can be achieved with a TEG to produce the electric power required in such an application. Comparisons of the predicted efficiency, the required heat transfer rate to the TEG and the heat transfer area needed for sustained operation under thermal conditions relevant to the self-powered heating application are made for several potential thermoelectric materials. This analysis was used to develop system requirements for a self-powered hot water heater using a TEG for electric power generation.

Laclair, Tim↗
DOE OSTI2025

Grid Reliability and U.S. Coal Fleet Attributes: Considerations for State Regulators

This briefing paper provides state utility regulators with a comprehensive and current understanding of the reliability attributes of coal as a generation resource, potential reliability impacts associated with near-term coal plant retirements, and possible mitigation strategies to ensure a stable and resilient energy system.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Hierarchical Control Architecture: Utilization of Behind-the-Meter Appliances with Increased Visibility and Controllability

Optimal operations of distribution systems to enhance reliability and resiliency can be achieved if information with higher fidelity can be accessed from grid premise devices. This paper discusses a hierarchical control architecture that can introduce higher visibility and controllability by utilizing the estimated injection and absorption of different behind-the-meter controllable loads, and DERs, including EVs, within a premise. The acquired information is used to make control decisions for scheduling the premise appliances to reduce energy consumptions. The premise controller can also optimize the consumptions on a day-to-day basis in addition to taking input signals from the utility operators to support grid-service events (e.g., peak shaving). The entire control architecture is designed in a modular and scalable fashion that provides benefits to the utility from the reuse of existing infrastructure while creating opportunities for various grid services to be enabled by the operation of premise controllers.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗