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At least 235 records · Page 13

Functional Requirements for the WEIS Toolset to Enable Controls Co-Design of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines

The goal of the new Wind Energy with Integrated Servo-control (WEIS) toolset under development is to provide the offshore wind industry and research communities with an open-source, user-friendly, flexible tool to enable true controls co-design (CCD) of the physical design of a floating offshore wind turbine together with the controller. WEIS will use a multifidelity library of models built on the foundations of WISDEM® and OpenFAST formerly known as FAST). This paper presents the WEIS development plan, including the functional requirements of WEIS (including improvements to WISDEM and OpenFAST) together with associated rationale for their establishment and a qualitative description of the modeling approaches that will be implemented to address these functional requirements. The development of WEIS is a project under the Aerodynamic Turbines Lighter and Afloat with Nautical Technologies and Integrated Servo-control program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy.

27 ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy↗

American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN)

The American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN) is an international multi-institutional wind energy field campaign to better understand wake losses within operational wind farms. Wake interactions are among the least understood physical interactions in wind plants today, leading to unexpected power and profit losses. For example, Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind farm developer, recently announced a downward revision in energy estimates across their energy generation portfolio, primarily caused by underprediction of energy losses from wind farm blockage and wakes. In their announcement, they noted that the standard industry models used for their original energy estimates were inaccurate, and this was likely an industry-wide issue. To help further improve and validate wind plant models across scales from individual turbines as well as interfarm interactions between plants, new observations, such as those planned for AWAKEN, are critical. These model improvements will enable both improved layout and more optimal operation of wind farms with greater power production and improved reliability, ultimately leading to lower wind energy costs.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Development of a Geothermal Module in reV: Quantifying the Geothermal Potential while Accounting for the Geospatial Intersection of the Grid Infrastructure and Land Use Characteristics

The Renewable Energy Potential (reV) model is a geospatial platform for estimating technical potential and developing renewable energy supply curves, initially developed for wind and solar technologies. The model evaluates deployment constraints, considering land use, environmental, and cultural factors, and estimates the distance to existing grid features to connect future plants (Maclaurin et al., 2021). A pressing deficiency in the reV model, however, is representation of geothermal electricity generation technologies. To address this gap, we developed a novel geothermal generation module for reV that allows for representation and analysis at the same level of detail as other renewable technologies. This paper describes our process for evaluating data sources for the modeling, and presents five preliminary reV geothermal results. More specifically, we present two sets of resource data that represent upper and lower bounds for geothermal potential. We then present several sensitivity runs using the upper bound resource data; the results are encouraging that levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) can be reduced by optimizing the location and estimated capacity of the spatially diverse geothermal resource while considering the distance to existing grid infrastructure. Our preliminary supply curves and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) results should be considered with care due to the highly uncertainty in geothermal resource potential data. We present median LCOE values for the conterminous U.S. for five scenarios: four hydrothermal (3.5km depth) and one EGS (4.5km depth). The capital and operating costs for each respective technology are modeled. We also compare results using two different resource data sources.

exclusions↗

Development of a Geothermal Module in reV: Quantifying the Geothermal Potential While Accounting for the Geospatial Intersection of the Grid Infrastructure and Land Use Characteristics: Preprint

The Renewable Energy Potential (reV) model is a geospatial platform for estimating technical potential and developing renewable energy supply curves, initially developed for wind and solar technologies. The model evaluates deployment constraints, considering land use, environmental, and cultural factors, and estimates the distance to existing grid features to connect future plants (Maclaurin et al., 2021). A pressing deficiency in the reV model, however, is representation of geothermal electricity generation technologies. To address this gap, we developed a novel geothermal generation module for reV that allows for representation and analysis at the same level of detail as other renewable technologies. This paper describes our process for evaluating data sources for the modeling, and presents five preliminary reV geothermal results. More specifically, we present two sets of resource data that represent upper and lower bounds for geothermal potential. We then present several sensitivity runs using the upper bound resource data; the results are encouraging that levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) can be reduced by optimizing the location and estimated capacity of the spatially diverse geothermal resource while considering the distance to existing grid infrastructure. Our preliminary supply curves and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) results should be considered with care due to the highly uncertainty in geothermal resource potential data. We present median LCOE values for the conterminous U.S. for five scenarios: four hydrothermal (3.5km depth) and one EGS (4.5km depth). The capital and operating costs for each respective technology are modeled. We also compare results using two different resource data sources.

exclusions↗

Renewable Energy Potential Model: Geothermal Supply Curves

The Renewable Energy Potential (reV) model is a geospatial platform for estimating technical potential and developing renewable energy supply curves, initially developed for wind and solar technologies. The model evaluates deployment constraints, considering land use, environmental, and cultural factors, and estimates the distance to existing grid features to connect future plants (Maclaurin et al., 2021). A pressing deficiency in the reV model, however, is representation of geothermal electricity generation technologies. To address this gap, we developed a novel geothermal generation module for reV that allows for representation and analysis at the same level of detail as other renewable technologies. The included paper describes our process for evaluating data sources for the modeling, and presents five preliminary reV geothermal results. More specifically, we present two sets of resource data that represent upper and lower bounds for geothermal potential. We then present several sensitivity runs using the upper bound resource data; the results are encouraging that levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) can be reduced by optimizing the location and estimated capacity of the spatially diverse geothermal resource while considering the distance to existing grid infrastructure. Our preliminary supply curves and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) results provided here should be considered with care due to the high uncertainty in geothermal resource potential data. We present median LCOE values for the conterminous U.S. for three scenarios: two hydrothermal (3.5km depth, USGS heat flow & SMU temperatures respectively) and one EGS (4.5km depth, SMU temperatures). The capital and operating costs for each respective technology are modeled. We also compare results using two different resource data sources.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Functional Requirements for the WEIS Toolset to Enable Controls Co-Design of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines: Preprint

The goal of the new Wind Energy with Integrated Servo-control (WEIS) toolset under development is to provide the offshore wind industry and research communities with an open-source, user-friendly, and flexible tool to enable true Controls Co-Design (CCD) of the physical design of a floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) together with the controller. WEIS will utilize a multifidelity library of models built upon the foundations of WISDEM and OpenFAST (formerly known as FAST). This paper presents the WEIS development plan, including the functional requirements of WEIS (including improvements to WISDEM and OpenFAST) together with associated rationale for their establishment, and a qualitative description of the modeling approaches that will be implemented to address these functional requirements. The development of WEIS is a project under the Aerodynamic Turbines, Lighter and Afloat, with Nautical Technologies and Integrated Servo-control (ATLANTIS) program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E).

27 ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy↗

An Integrated Platform for Wind Plant Operations: From Atmosphere to Electrons to the Grid

Under the Atmosphere to Electrons to Grid project (A2e2g), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is developing an optimization platform for wind plant operations. The platform merges forecasting tools with aerodynamic and economic models in order to identify optimal operating schedules and controller functions that will maximize a wind plant's value streams for energy and other grid services. In this presentation, we will describe functionalities of the platform. We will also discuss the implications the use of the platform might have for understanding and valuing the capabilities of wind resources for power system operations.

A2E2G↗

ECP Report: Update on Proxy Applications and Vendor Interactions

The ExaLearn miniGAN team (Ellis and Rajamanickam) have released miniGAN, a generative adversarial network(GAN) proxy application, through the ECP proxy application suite. miniGAN is the first machine learning proxy application in the suite (note: the ECP CANDLE project did previously release some benchmarks) and models the performance for training generator and discriminator networks. The GAN's generator and discriminator generate plausible 2D/3D maps and identify fake maps, respectively. miniGAN aims to be a proxy application for related applications in cosmology (CosmoFlow, ExaGAN) and wind energy (ExaWind). miniGAN has been developed so that optimized mathematical kernels (e.g., kernels provided by Kokkos Kernels) can be plugged into to the proxy application to explore potential performance improvements. miniGAN has been released as open source software and is available through the ECP proxy application website (https://proxyapps.exascaleproject.ordecp-proxy-appssuite/) and on GitHub (https://github.com/SandiaMLMiniApps/miniGAN). As part of this release, a generator is provided to generate a data set (series of images) that are inputs to the proxy application.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Design of a real-time wind turbine simulator using a custom parallel architecture

The design of a new parallel-processing digital simulator is described. The new simulator has been developed specifically for analysis of wind energy systems in real time. The new processor has been named: the Wind Energy System Time-domain simulator, version 3 (WEST-3). Like previous WEST versions, WEST-3 performs many computations in parallel. The modules in WEST-3 are pure digital processors, however. These digital processors can be programmed individually and operated in concert to achieve real-time simulation of wind turbine systems. Because of this programmability, WEST-3 is very much more flexible and general than its two predecessors. The design features of WEST-3 are described to show how the system produces high-speed solutions of nonlinear time-domain equations. WEST-3 has two very fast Computational Units (CU's) that use minicomputer technology plus special architectural features that make them many times faster than a microcomputer. These CU's are needed to perform the complex computations associated with the wind turbine rotor system in real time. The parallel architecture of the CU causes several tasks to be done in each cycle, including an IO operation and the combination of a multiply, add, and store. The WEST-3 simulator can be expanded at any time for additional computational power. This is possible because the CU's interfaced to each other and to other portions of the simulation using special serial buses. These buses can be 'patched' together in essentially any configuration (in a manner very similar to the programming methods used in analog computation) to balance the input/ output requirements. CU's can be added in any number to share a given computational load. This flexible bus feature is very different from many other parallel processors which usually have a throughput limit because of rigid bus architecture.

Hoffman, John A.↗

Equations for Estimating the Strength of TV Signals Scattered by Wind Turbines

During the late 1970's and early 1980's, concerns about the potential interference of wind turbine generators with electromagnetic communication signals led to a series of research studies, both in the laboratory and in the field, conducted by the staff of the University of Michigan Radiation Laboratory. These studies were sponsored by organizations such as the U.S. Department of Energy, the Solar Energy Research Institute, and private developers of wind power stations. Research objectives were to identify the mechanisms by which wind turbines might adversely affect communication signals, estimate the severity of these effects for different types of signals (e.g. television, radio, microwave, and navigation), and formulate mathematical models with which to predict the sizes of potential interference zones around wind turbines and wind power plants. This work formed the basis for preliminary standards on assessing electromagnetic interference (EMI) by wind turbines. With the current renewal of interest in wind energy projects, it is appropriate that the many experimental and analytical aspects of this pioneering work be reviewed and correlated. The purpose of this study is to combine test data and theory from previously published and unpublished research reports into a unified and consistent set of equations which are useful for estimating potential levels of television interference from wind turbines. To be comprehensive, these equations will include both horizontal-axis and vertical-axis wind turbines (HAWT's and VAWT's), blade configuration parameters (e.g. number, size, material, twist, and coning), signal frequency and power, and directional characteristics of the receiving antenna. The approach that is followed in this report is as follows. First, some basic equations that describe electromagnetic signals with interference are presented without detailed derivations, since the latter are available in the references. Minor changes in terminology are made for purposes of consistency. Next, the concept of a signal scatter ratio is introduced, which defines the fraction of the signal impinging on a wind turbine that is scattered by its blades onto a nearby receiver. Equations from references are modified for the calculation of experimental scatter ratios (from measured signals containing interference) and idealized scatter ratios (from rotor characteristics and relative locations of the transmitter, the turbine, and the receiver). Experimental and idealized scatter ratios are then calculated and compared for 75 cases from the literature, in which TVI measurements were made around a variety of wind turbines. An empirical equation is then defined for estimating the probability that an actual scatter ratio will differ from an idealized ratio by a given amount. Finally a sample calculation of the size of a potential TV interference zone around a hypothetical wind power station is presented.

Spera, David A.↗

A simulation model for wind energy storage systems. Volume 1: Technical report

A comprehensive computer program for the modeling of wind energy and storage systems utilizing any combination of five types of storage (pumped hydro, battery, thermal, flywheel and pneumatic) was developed. The level of detail of Simulation Model for Wind Energy Storage (SIMWEST) is consistent with a role of evaluating the economic feasibility as well as the general performance of wind energy systems. The software package consists of two basic programs and a library of system, environmental, and load components. The first program is a precompiler which generates computer models (in FORTRAN) of complex wind source storage application systems, from user specifications using the respective library components. The second program provides the techno-economic system analysis with the respective I/O, the integration of systems dynamics, and the iteration for conveyance of variables. SIMWEST program, as described, runs on the UNIVAC 1100 series computers.

Warren, A. W.↗

Proceedings of the 2021 Airborne Wind Energy Workshop

On March 2-3, 2021, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducted a virtual workshop to evaluate the status, potential development, and technical viability of AWE systems as a source of energy in the United States. Stakeholder input provided at the workshop will contribute to the report to Congress. This report summarizes key workshop findings, current technology research and development activities in the United States, and opportunities and potential modes of collaboration and coordination for future technology research and development activities. The workshop focused on U.S. stakeholders in AWE, with approximately 100 experts and industry stakeholders from AWE technology developers, operators, engineering firms, consultants, government, national laboratories, and university researchers. The workshop began with an explanation from DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) Technology Manager, Ben Hallissy, of the context and purpose of the workshop, including a request from Congress that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) deliver a "report on the potential for, and technical viability of, airborne wind energy systems to provide a significant source of energy in the United States, including a summary of research, development, demonstration, and commercialization needs, including an estimate of Federal funding requirements, to further examine and validate the technical and economic viability of airborne wind energy concepts over the 10-year period." The workshop began with brief introductions from attendees who explained their interest in AWE. Nicolas El Hayek of Planair summarized the proceedings from the AWE workshop held in September 2020 by the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Task 11. This was followed by a presentation by Roland Schmehl of TU-Delft summarizing European AWE R&D efforts. Chris Vermillion of North Carolina State University and Jason Jonkman of NREL presented an overview of U.S. R&D efforts. Then five panelists discussed AWE markets, sizes of AWE systems, challenges, and opportunities. Panelists included: Cristina Archer, professor at the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment and associate director at the Center for Research in Wind (CReW) at the University of Delaware; Stephan Brabeck, chief technology officer at SkySails; Thierry Delahave, innovation and technology development lead at Saipem; Rob Creighton, founder and chief executive officer at WindLift; and David Schaefer, founder and chief executive officer at eWind Solutions. The second day of the workshop began with a brief overview of five key topics that are crucial to enabling AWE in the United States. These topics range from estimates of the U.S. wind resource, technical generation potential, economic analysis, environmental challenges, status of current technology and R&D activities, and needed activities to enable commercialization of AWE. This set the stage for a robust discussion in breakout groups where individuals could offer their opinions on the potential opportunities for AWE in the United States. The following topics were discussed in the breakout groups: resource potential and energy output, technical potential, social and environmental impacts, and permitting, techno-economic analysis and markets, technology assessment and upscaling and demonstration and commercialization needs. The second day concluded with reports by the NREL research team, communicating the key themes and outcomes from each of the breakout group discussions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Offshore Wind Energy Validation Experiment Hierarchy

This paper provides a summary of planning work for experiments that will be necessary to address the long-term model validation needs required to meet offshore wind energy deployment goals. Conceptual experiments are identified and laid out in a validation hierarchy for both wind turbine and wind plant applications. Instrumentation needs that will be required for the offshore validation experiments to be impactful are then listed. The document concludes with a nominal vision for how these experiments can be accomplished.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Selected advanced aerodynamic and active control concepts development

A task for the Energy Efficient Transport program conducted: (1) The design and wind tunnel development of high-aspect-ratio supercritical wings, investigating the cruise speed regime and also high-lift. (2) The preliminary design and evaluation of an aircraft combining a high-aspect-ratio supercritical wing with a winglet. (3) Active Controls: The determination of criteria, configuration, and flying qualities associated with augmented longitudinal stability of a level likely to be acceptable for the next generation transport; and the design of a practical augmentation system. The baseline against which the work was performed and evaluated was the Douglas DC-X-200 twin engine derivative of the DC-10 transport. The supercritical wing development showed that the cruise and buffet requirements could be achieved and that the wing could be designed to realize a sizable advantage over today's technology. Important advances in high lift performance were shown. The design study of an aircraft with supercritical wing and winglet suggested advantages in weight and fuel economy could be realized. The study of augmented stability, conducted with the aid of a motion base simulator, concluded that a negative static margin was acceptable for the baseline unaugmented aircraft.

Source record↗

Chapter 9.12 - Weather, Climatic and Ecological Impacts of Onshore Wind Farms

Wind power is an environmentally sustainable technology that is likely to be part of the solution to the climate change, air pollution, and energy security problems. Despite many positive benefits, the rapid development of wind power has raised concerns about some potential adverse environmental impacts. While converting wind?s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines (WTs) modify properties of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) including the vertical profiles and surface-atmosphere exchanges of energy, momentum, mass, moisture, and trace gases. Given the current installed capacity and the projected installation worldwide, wind farms (WFs) are likely becoming a major driver of manmade land use change on Earth. Hence, understanding WT-atmosphere-surface interactions and assessing potential environmental impacts of WFs are of significant scientific, societal and economic importance. Here we review our progress in assessing potential impacts of onshore wind power on weather, climate and vegetation activity. A consensus is emerging based on observations and modeling studies that WFs cause a local to regional warming effect, particularly at nighttime, while the impacts on precipitation, wind patterns, crop yields and vegetation activity are uncertain. The warming effect results simply from vertical heat redistribution within the ABL due to turbine-enhanced vertical turbulent mixing in the wakes. At the global scale, with a substantial installation of WFs, mesoscale and climate models predicted large regional changes but small global impacts on temperature, while the impacts on precipitation, clouds, wind patterns and large-scale circulation have large uncertainties and are region specific and scale dependent. Despite increasing number of research efforts, our assessment of potential WF impacts is still very limited. Although the WF impacts are mostly local and limited to the near-surface ABL, this is the layer where we live and plants grow. Hence, more studies are needed to improve our understanding of WT-atmosphere-surface interactions and our capability to model and project the weather, climatic and ecological impacts of large WFs.

atmospheric boundary layer↗

Scaling Up Energy Efficiency Investment in Emerging Markets - Private Sector Perspectives

Since 2000, electricity demand has flattened and decoupled from Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. This trend is anticipated to continue for the next several decades and is largely attributed to the implementation of energy efficiency measures. However, non-OECD countries (emerging markets) have experienced, and are projected to continue experiencing, increasing electricity demands. If the world is to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement, annual investments in clean energy and energy efficiency need to increase by a factor of six by 2050, compared to 2015. Information presented in this paper is based on qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods to provide an empirical understanding of barriers to private sector clean energy investment including microgrid development, energy efficiency, smart grid development, and utility-scale wind and solar in emerging markets. Through literature review, a survey, and a series of webinar dialogues, USAID and the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) solicited input from private sector actors, including developers, project financiers, manufacturers and technical assistance service providers, on the challenges they face to market entry in emerging markets, and their suggestions for improving market competitiveness.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Bat Smart Curtailment: Efficacy and Operational Testing

Curtailment, or blanket curtailment, is a leading method to mitigate the impacts to bats from operating wind turbines. Although this strategy results in considerable decreases in bat fatalities, it also results in decreased energy production. In 2019, Natural Power was awarded funding by the Department of Energy to assess the readiness of the informed smart curtailment technology, EchoSense (formerly referred to as Detection and Active Response Curtailment, [DARC]). The research undertaken by this project expands the understanding of alternative methods, known as smart curtailment, to maintain a reduction in bat fatalities while simultaneously recovering lost energy associated with blanket curtailment. The overall project was composed of three major tasks; Task 1 was focused on cybersecurity compliance of the EchoSense system in accordance with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (“NERC CIP”) standards, Task 2 assessed the mechanical loads exerted on turbines when operating under a smart curtailment regime, and Task 3 assessed the efficacy of the EchoSense system at an operational wind farm. Regarding Task 1, an external review by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory determined that the EchoSense system did not create any new cybersecurity weaknesses and was compliant with the NERC CIP standards. As a result of this process, Natural Power developed some best practices (10.1) for wind- wildlife technology developers. In conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the results (10.2) of the loads testing demonstrated that the periodic curtailment and release of turbines by the EchoSense system did not have any detrimental impact on the mechanical components of a wind turbine (Task 2). During the late summer to fall of 2020 and 2021, Natural Power demonstrated that the use of the EchoSense smart curtailment system resulted in no significant difference in bat fatalities compared to blanket curtailment with cut-in speeds at 6.9 m/s (2020) and 5.0 m/s (2021) while resulting in a significant difference in decreased lost energy (Task 3). This translates to an average of 41% (2020) and 56% (2021) reduction in per turbine energy loss compared to blanket curtailment. The reduction in energy loss that would have been achieved by EchoSense curtailment compared to blanket curtailment, if applied across all 69 turbines, is roughly equivalent to having an additional turbine on site. These results are notable for finding a balance between the environmental impact of wind energy and the economic feasibility in energy production associated with mitigating that impact. https://www.naturalpower.com/us/expertise/service/engineering-operations/echosense

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Proceedings from the State of the Science and Technology for Minimizing Impacts to Bats from Wind Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office (DOE WETO), and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory convened a workshop entitled the State of the Science and Technology for Minimizing Impacts to Bats from Wind Energy on 13–14 November 2019. The objectives of the workshop were to (1) Identify the current impact minimization measures that are, or can be, used to reduce bat fatalities at wind energy facilities, (2) Assess the current effectiveness of those minimization measures, (3) Identify and assess the research and development (R&D) opportunities needed to optimize and improve the effectiveness of current minimization and deterrent technologies and inform the development of future solutions; and (4) Identify potential emerging or novel methods for informing impact minimization measures at or around wind energy facilities. Specifically, the workshop focused on deterrent and curtailment strategies. For deterrents, the discussion centered on the existing technology (i.e., ultrasonic deterrents, dim-UV light, and texture coating), integration with wind turbines (either retrofitting or out of the box installation), effectiveness, validation studies, and cost (e.g., technology, installation, validation, and maintenance). For curtailment, the conversation was divided into blanket curtailment (i.e., based on time and wind speed) and smart curtailment (i.e., blanket curtailment plus additional variables such as temperature or bat activity). The workshop included plenary presentations, panels, and breakout sessions to share data and stakeholder perspectives, and engage participants. Although there are several priority topics related to bat and wind energy, this workshop focused the discussion on the current technologies and strategies that are, or can be, used to reduce bat fatalities at wind energy facilities, status of research and development (R&D) of minimization measures, opportunities to optimize costs and improve effectiveness, and potential emerging or novel approaches to explore. This workshop took a holistic approach and discussed all aspects associated with advancing deterrent technologies and curtailment strategies, including the technological, biological, economic, and regulatory barriers faced by the wind energy and wildlife community.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗