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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 271 records · Page 15
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Securing the Modern Grid: Federal Investments, Digitization, and Supply Chain Strategy

Across the United States (U.S.) grid expansion and modernization is underway, paving the way for accelerated load growth and intelligent resource management. Digitization of the grid is supported by several state and federal programs, providing support for utilities installing advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), AI-powered analytics systems, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and distributed energy resource management systems (DERMS) to transform the grid from a one-way power delivery system into an intelligent, responsive network that will enable faster load growth and power expansion of data centers for advanced artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The digital transformation of America's grid presents opportunity for increased efficiency and resiliency but also introduces new digital risks that require careful management. Digital equipment often contains several vulnerabilities such as unencrypted communication protocols, and persistent remote access capabilities that could be exploited to manipulate device settings, coordinate service disruptions, or inject false data into grid operations. These digital risks become particularly important as the grid must rapidly scale to support AI-driven data centers, which the administration has identified as essential for maintaining U.S. technological leadership and economic competitiveness. These vulnerabilities are compounded by supply chain realities: Chinese manufacturers currently produce 70-90% of essential grid components including inverters, batteries, and control systems, with the U.S. lacking domestic manufacturing capacity for critical assets like extra-high voltage transformers. Recent federal legislation has established Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) restrictions to address these risks, requiring projects to achieve escalating thresholds of non-FEOC content to receive tax credits while utilities work to expand sourcing channels for their supply chains and strengthen security measures. These restrictions arrive precisely when utilities face unprecedented electricity demand growth driven by the rapid growth in data centers, creating a considerable challenge: rapidly expanding infrastructure while navigating complex compliance requirements while lacking viable alternatives for many critical components. Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and its partners have developed practical approaches to help utilities navigate these intersecting challenges as they leverage federal investment to strengthen and grow the grid. These solutions include Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) principles that build resilience directly into systems, the Cirrus tool for secure cloud migration, and enhanced procurement guidance that embeds security requirements throughout equipment lifecycles. Federal initiatives, such as the Technical Assistance for Digital Assurance (TADA) project, provide direct support to utilities implementing these approaches while facilitating knowledge sharing across the industry. While these tools and frameworks cannot eliminate all risks inherent in foreign supply chain dependencies, they offer pragmatic pathways for strengthening security posture without sacrificing the deployment momentum essential to meeting surging electricity demand. Ultimately, securing America's digital energy infrastructure demands dedicated coordination across multiple fronts: building domestic supply chains, implementing robust digital assurance practices, and maintaining the aggressive modernization timeline necessary for reliability, resilience, and energy independence.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Mental Models for Managing Grid Cybersecurity Risk - ARC Industry Forum, Cybersecurity and Energy Transition

A proper mental model of the concepts of cyber risk and its components of threat and exploitability and consequence is necessary to allocate limited resources to different security activities, especially when considered alongside reliability and regulatory and economic risks. Understanding the consequence and frequency different risks are realized also helps align the right mitigations to the right risks. Cyber-informed engineering (CIE) is an emerging method to “engineer out” cyber risk across product and system lifecycles, and INL has a portfolio of programs operationalizing CIE’s principles for the energy sector.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

DERMS Online: A New Voltage Sensitivity-Enabled Feedback Optimization Framework

This paper proposes a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) solution by developing a new voltage sensitivity-enabled feedback optimization framework. The key idea is to adopt a measurement feedback scheme to reformulate the original nonlinear optimization into a linear programming (LP) problem via perturb-and-observe-based voltage sensitivity analysis. The proposed solution eliminates the dependence on load knowledge and can be implemented online thanks to an efficient open-source solver for LP problems. Comparison results with other control methods on a real distribution feeder in Southern California highlight the feasibility as well as benefits for the proposed framework.

distributed energy resource management↗
NASA NTRS1996

Cooperative high-performance storage in the accelerated strategic computing initiative

The use and acceptance of new high-performance, parallel computing platforms will be impeded by the absence of an infrastructure capable of supporting orders-of-magnitude improvement in hierarchical storage and high-speed I/O (Input/Output). The distribution of these high-performance platforms and supporting infrastructures across a wide-area network further compounds this problem. We describe an architectural design and phased implementation plan for a distributed, Cooperative Storage Environment (CSE) to achieve the necessary performance, user transparency, site autonomy, communication, and security features needed to support the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). ASCI is a Department of Energy (DOE) program attempting to apply terascale platforms and Problem-Solving Environments (PSEs) toward real-world computational modeling and simulation problems. The ASCI mission must be carried out through a unified, multilaboratory effort, and will require highly secure, efficient access to vast amounts of data. The CSE provides a logically simple, geographically distributed, storage infrastructure of semi-autonomous cooperating sites to meet the strategic ASCI PSE goal of highperformance data storage and access at the user desktop.

Gary, Mark↗
NASA NTRS1986

Spacecraft 2000

The Spacecraft 2000 program has been conceived by NASA with the objective to maintain the U.S. in a strong technical position in the space arena. The program is to involve a cooperative NASA/industry effort with long-range technology development aims. The technology areas addressed are related to spacecraft power, spacecraft energy storage, power management and distribution, autonomous operation-control, onboard systems integration, secondary propulsion, communications technologies, and systems/subsystems technology verification. Aspects of Spacecraft 2000 interactions with industry are discussed, taking into account visitations of NASA personnel to selected industrial concerns, most critical concerns (general), major technical concern, technology drivers for future spacecraft power systems, technology considerations for secondary propulsion, and questions of commercialization. Plans related to a Spacecraft 2000 program formulation are also considered.

Faymon, K. A.↗
DOE OSTI2018

An air quality index-based multistage type-2-fuzzy interval-stochastic programming model for energy and environmental systems management under multiple uncertainties

Highlights: • A multistage type-2-fuzzy interval-stochastic programming (MTIP) method is developed. • Air quality index (AQI) is introduced to manage energy and environmental systems. • AQI-MTIP model is formulated and results for Tianjin's EES are generated. • Impacts of environmental requirements on energy systems is analyzed. • Results can provide support for making effective pollutant mitigation policy. In this study, a multistage type-2-fuzzy interval-stochastic programming (MTIP) method is developed, which extends upon the existing multistage stochastic programming (MSP) by allowing uncertainties expressed as probabilistic distributions, interval values and type-2 fuzzy sets to be effectively incorporated within the optimization framework. Through coupling air quality index (AQI) with MTIP, an AQI-MTIP model is formulated for energy and environmental systems (EES) management of Tianjin. A number of scenarios based on changed AQIs are examined to analyze the impacts of environmental requirements on the city's energy system. Results indicate that (i) with the improvement of environmental requirement, utilization of clean energies (especially natural gas) is provoked markedly; (ii) PM{sub 2.5} is the primary pollutant, 64.50% of which should be reduced each period to maintain the city's air quality at a health-safe level. These findings can help decision makers adjust energy structure, make effective mitigation strategy, and gain deep insight into the relationship between energy consumption and environmental requirement.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2018

The Power of Partnerships - Federal Energy Management Program and Department of Homeland Security: Resilience Framework

The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) collaborated in a strategic partnership to advance federal critical infrastructure resilience and develop a Resilience Framework to apply across the DHS enterprise. The partnership also established resilience performance metrics and monitoring guidelines, identified best practices for resilience technologies and solutions, and provided technical support.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2018

Day-Ahead Optimal Operation for Multi-Energy Residential Systems with Renewables

The intermittency and stochasticity nature of distributed renewable energy sources has introduced great challenges to the efficiency and security of energy distribution system operations. To address the negative impacts of intermittent renewable energy sources, this paper proposes here a day-ahead optimal operation strategy utilizing distributed energy resources based on the framework of the interconnected multi-energy system. First, a framework and mathematical models of multi-energy residential systems (MERS) are proposed. Based on the characteristics of residential energy distribution networks, the complex MERS models are reformulated to relieve the computational burden. Furthermore, the uncertainty factors such as renewable energy generation fluctuations and demand variations are handled by a reformulated chance con-strained programming technique. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are validated through a combined electric power and natural gas test system. Compared to similar models and methods in the existing literature, the proposed method performs better in terms of solution time, model scalability, and robustness in handling uncertainties.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Microgrid Assisted Design for Remote Areas

In this work, we present a three-stage multiobjective mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) for the optimal expansion planning and operation of isolated multienergy microgrids in remote areas. By selecting the optimal distributed generators (DGs) and energy storage systems (ESSs) mix selection, siting, sizing, and scheduling in the remote microgrid, the proposed model is targeted to minimize the annualized total cost of microgrids while enhancing the performance of the system, i.e., minimizing the voltage deviations and line power loss. To represent the electricity and heat flow between generation resources and various electrical, heating, and cooling loads in the isolated microgrid, linearized power flow, and heat flow constraints are employed in the proposed optimization model. The available capacity of DGs and ESSs are modeled as discrete constants instead of continuous variables for practical purpose. Numerical simulation results on a remote microgrid consisting of DGs, ESSs, and various loads validate the proposed method.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Impact of model predictive control-enabled home energy management on large-scale distribution systems with photovoltaics

Residential customers use more than one-quarter of the electricity in the world. Optimally managing home energy consumption is an effective way of easing the operational challenges facing the electric grid with increasing solar photovoltaics (PV). This paper studies the impact of the future proliferation of home energy management systems (HEMS) in the presence of PV on large-scale distribution systems. First, we present a stochastic HEMS model that minimizes residential customers' thermal discomfort and energy costs under uncertainty. The HEMS model schedules the optimal operations of residential appliances in the presence of PV within a mixed-integer linear programming-based model predictive control framework that links the proposed HEMS to a quasi-steady-state time-series simulation tool. Additionally, extensive simulations are conducted for a stand-alone residential home using two tariff structures and for 1977 homes on an 8,500-node distribution feeder. Simulation results quantify the impact of the future proliferation of HEMS on the large-scale distribution system with PV.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Parallel Implementation of Nonadditive Gaussian Process Potentials for Monte Carlo Simulations

A strategy is presented to implement Gaussian process potentials in molecular simulations through parallel programming. Attention is focused on the three-body nonadditive energy, though all algorithms extend straightforwardly to the additive energy. The method to distribute pairs and triplets between processes is general to all potentials. Results are presented for a simulation box of argon, including full box and atom displacement calculations, which are relevant to Monte Carlo simulation. Data on speed-up are presented for up to 120 processes across four nodes. A 4-fold speed-up is observed over five processes, extending to 20-fold over 40 processes and 30-fold over 120 processes.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1978

Energy conservation, using remote thermal scanning

Airborne thermal infrared scans and thermal maps utilized in NASA's energy conservation program have proven to be efficient cost-effective method for identifying heat losses from building roofs and heating system distribution lines. Method employs commercially available equipment in highly developed way.

Bowman, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS1984

NASA's space energy technology program

NASA's Space Energy Systems program is concerned with the development of technology for space missions requiring high performance, such as geostationary orbit communication satellites and planetary spacecraft, and high capacity, such as the planned Space Station and lunar bases; these two requirements often lead to great differences in system design. The program accordingly addresses a wide range of candidate technologies, which encompasses photovoltaics, chemical energy conversion and storage, thermoelectric conversion, power management and distribution, and thermal management.

Mullin, J. P.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Time Distribution Analysis for Task Primitives to Support Dynamic Human Reliability Analysis

To support data collection for dynamic human reliability analysis (HRA), this study investigates time distributions for task primitives defined in the Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules (GOMS)–Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) method and Human Reliability data EXtraction (HuREX). GOMS-HRA was developed to provide cognition-based time and human error probability (HEP) information for dynamic HRA calculations within the Human Unimodel for Nuclear Technology to Enhance Reliability (HUNTER) framework, while HuREX is a comprehensive HRA data collection method developed by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). In this paper, we examine time distributions by using experimental data collected from the Simplified Human Error Experimental Program (SHEEP) study, which proposes an HRA data collection framework to complement full-scope simulator research and gather input data for dynamic HRA by using simplified simulators such as the Rancor Microworld simulator. This paper investigates whether the time required for GOMS-HRA and HuREX task primitives fits 13 statistical distributions. Additionally, we compare and discuss the time distributions obtained from both student operators and professional operators. The result was that this study identified several time distributions for five GOMS-HRA and four HuREX task primitives. In the future, the results of this study are expected to provide objective reference data on the elapsed time for task primitives and aid in realistically simulating scenarios within dynamic HRA.

Dynamic Human Reliability Analysis↗
DOE OSTI2019

The Value of Resilience for Distributed Energy Resources: An Overview of Current Analytical Practices

Recent extreme weather events, natural disasters, and cyber incursions have brought the vulnerability of the electric system into sharp focus. These events have demonstrated that planning for long-duration power interruptions caused by high-impact, low-probability events will require new approaches to power system resilience above and beyond previous hardening efforts. At the same time, the rapid growth and declining costs of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as microgrids, solar photovoltaics, and batteries have introduced new technology options for energy resilience. Consequently, state policymakers across the country have established electricity resilience policies and programs, with several states focusing specifically on resilient DERs as part of clean energy programs and grid modernization efforts. Although it is clear that DERs offer resilience benefits, it is unclear how to determine the value of those benefits. Identifying appropriate methodologies to calculate the value of resilience will be an important step toward ensuring that resilient DERs are considered alongside alternatives and integrated into future energy infrastructure and investment planning efforts. This paper reviews current practices for calculating the value of resilience with a focus on valuing resilient DERs installed within the distribution system. It examines both regulatory decision-making and non-regulatory cost-benefit analyses in order to determine if, and how, a value of resilience was calculated and applied. The paper is designed to address questions that utility regulators have identified as being of interest: (1) Have regulators identified and utilized a value of resilience in regulatory decisions related to resilient DERs? (2) Is the value of resilience being used to analyze resilient DERs in venues other than regulatory proceedings? (3) What are the different methods to value energy resilience? (4) What are the pros and cons of different methods used to value resilience? (5) Can regulators adopt or improve value of resilience methods to support their decisions?

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Precision QCD, Hadronic Structure & Forward QCD, Heavy Ions: Report of Energy Frontier Topical Groups 5, 6, 7 submitted to Snowmass 2021

This report was prepared on behalf of three Energy Frontier Topical Groups of the Snowmass 2021 Community Planning Exercise. It summarizes the status and implications of studies of strong interactions in high-energy experiments and QCD theory. We emphasize the rich landscape and broad impact of these studies in the decade ahead. Hadronic interactions play a central role in the high-luminosity Large Hadron Collider (LHC) physics program, and strong synergies exist between the (HL-)LHC and planned or proposed experiments at the U.S. Electron-Ion Collider, CERN forward physics experiments, high-intensity facilities, and future TeV-range lepton and hadron colliders. Prospects for precision determinations of the strong coupling and a variety of nonperturbative distribution and fragmentation functions are examined. We also review the potential of envisioned tests of new dynamical regimes of QCD in high-energy and high-density scattering processes with nucleon, ion, and photon initial states. The important role of the high-energy heavy-ion program in studies of nuclear structure and the nuclear medium, and its connections with QCD involving nucleons are summarized. We address ongoing and future theoretical advancements in multi-loop QCD computations, lattice QCD, jet substructure, and event generators. Cross-cutting connections between experimental measurements, theoretical predictions, large-scale data analysis, and high-performance computing are emphasized.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

An Evaluation of the Economic and Resilience Benefits of a Microgrid in Northampton, Massachusetts

Recent developments and advances in distributed energy resource (DER) technologies make them valuable assets in microgrids. This paper presents an innovative evaluation framework for microgrid assets to capture economic benefits from various grid and behind-the-meter services in grid-connecting mode and resilience benefits in islanding mode. In particular, a linear programming formulation is used to model different services and DER operational constraints to determine the optimal DER dispatch to maximize economic benefits. For the resiliency analysis, a stochastic evaluation procedure is proposed to explicitly quantify the microgrid survivability against a random outage, considering uncertainties associated with photovoltaic (PV) generation, system load, and distributed generator failures. Optimal coordination strategies are developed to minimize unserved energy and improve system survivability, considering different levels of system connectedness. The proposed framework has been applied to evaluate a proposed microgrid in Northampton, Massachusetts that would link the Northampton Department of Public Works, Cooley Dickenson Hospital, and Smith Vocational Area High School. The findings of this analysis indicate that over a 20-year economic life, a 441 kW/441 kWh battery energy storage system, and 386 kW PV solar array can generate $2.5 million in present value benefits, yielding a 1.16 return on investment ratio. Results of this study also show that forming a microgrid generally improves system survivability, but the resilience performance of individual facilities varies depending on power-sharing strategies.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Assessing the vertical structure of Arctic aerosols using balloon-borne measurements

The rapidly warming Arctic is sensitive to perturbations in the surface energy budget, which can be caused by clouds and aerosols. However, the interactions between clouds and aerosols are poorly quantified in the Arctic, in part due to (1) limited observations of vertical structure of aerosols relative to clouds and (2) ground-based observations often being inadequate for assessing aerosol impacts on cloud formation in the characteristically stratified Arctic atmosphere. Here, we present a novel evaluation of Arctic aerosol vertical distributions using almost 3 years' worth of tethered balloon system (TBS) measurements spanning multiple seasons. The TBS was deployed at the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program's facility at Oliktok Point, Alaska. Aerosols were examined in tandem with atmospheric stability and ground-based remote sensing of cloud macrophysical properties to specifically address the representativeness of near-surface aerosols to those at cloud base. Based on a statistical analysis of the TBS profiles, ground-based aerosol number concentrations were unequal to those at cloud base 86 % of the time. Intermittent aerosol layers were observed 63 % of the time due to poorly mixed below-cloud environments, mostly found in the spring, causing a decoupling of the surface from the cloud layer. A uniform distribution of aerosol below cloud was observed only 14 % of the time due to a well-mixed below-cloud environment, mostly during the fall. The equivalent potential temperature profiles of the below-cloud environment reflected the aerosol profile 89 % of the time, whereby a mixed or stratified below-cloud environment was observed during a uniform or layered aerosol profile, respectively. In general, a combination of aerosol sources, thermodynamic structure, and wet removal processes from clouds and precipitation likely played a key role in establishing observed aerosol vertical structures. Results such as these could be used to improve future parameterizations of aerosols and their impacts on Arctic cloud formation and radiative properties.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗