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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 OSTI2022

Real-time Implementation of Grid Code Compliant Grid Edge Energy Management System

Integrated distributed energy resources (DER) in a distribution system need to follow grid codes to avoid violations that result in DER/circuit segment disconnection. To comply with grid code requirements at the grid edge level, network constrained grid edge energy management system (EMS) can be deployed. The objective of grid edge EMS is to provide economic solution for active and reactive power DER setpoints at each dispatch interval and ensure voltage regulation to support secure interconnection of the grid edge segment to the distribution system with multiple inverter based DER units. In this work, real-time simulation of grid code compliant grid edge EMS is deployed in a realistic feeder circuit segment. For real-time simulation, communication between the grid edge EMS and DERs is done exploiting IEC 61850-7-420. It enables interoperability among different DERs and grid edge EMS. No prior art has deployed IEC 61850-7-420 GOOSE communication protocol for grid edge EMS. Conversion of IEC 61850 GOOSE messages to Modbus communication protocol is also performed to communicate with grid edge EMS in commodity-off the shelf embedded boards in this work. The real-time simulation in OPAL-RT real-time digital simulator shows the out-performance of grid edge EMS by reducing the voltage violation in the distribution circuit.

Energy management system↗
DOE OSTI2021

Hardware-in-the-Loop Testbed for Cyber-Physical Security of Photovoltaic Farms

In the last decades, modem grids with distributed energy resources, such as photovoltaic (PV) farms, are increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks that seriously affect the stability and performance of the power system. While cyber-physical security of smart grids is extensively studied, most of the existing work focuses on the grid level and neglects the modeling and features of device-level power electronics converters (PECs). Furthermore, establishing a high-fidelity simulation testbed that can simulate harmonic frequencies of the PV farm is in urgent need. In this paper, a high-fidelity and real-time hardware-in- the-loop testbed is built to simulate the harmonics of power electronics converters for cyber-physical security of PEC-enabled PV farms. Based on this testbed, the impact of typical cyber-attacks and physical faults on the PV converter can be analyzed, thus providing a foundation for cyber-attack detection, root cause diagnosis, and resilient control to mitigate the adverse effects of cyber-attacks.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

How an Autonomous Offshore Power System Can Transform the Ocean Economy - A Hypothetical Case Study Utilizing an Autonomous Offshore Power System in Northern Lights Carbon Capture and Storage Project

An Autonomous Offshore Power System (AOPS) provides in-situ power, energy storage, real-time data and communications support, asset management, and other capabilities at sea. It has applications for all offshore industries: energy, defense and security, aquaculture, science and research, and communications. Furthermore, this paper highlights how an AOPS can reduce cost, complexity, and carbon-intensity for existing offshore operations and enable new capabilities for offshore industry leaders. This new AOPS technology has two primary advantages. First, it unlocks the autonomous, electric future of the ocean economy via ‘local’ power generation and energy storage, in addition to real-time connection to the data cloud. Second, it helps enable a material change in the global energy mix through cost-effective, reliable generation and storage technology for use cases including mobile/static data-gathering and reporting systems, operating equipment, and charging networks for uncrewed surface vessels. AOPS technology will help transform the ocean economy, and thus has implications for offshore industry leaders as they push to reduce costs today and make an autonomous and decarbonized future possible.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2026

Lightfall v0.0.1

Lightfall is a desktop application for synchrotron beamline instrument control, data acquisition, and live analysis at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). Built on Python and Qt, it provides a native graphical interface for operating beamline hardware, configuring and executing experimental scans, and visualizing results in real time. Key features include direct integration with EPICS control systems, a built-in electronic logbook, remote beamline access over secure tunnels, and an interprocess communication (IPC) architecture that coordinates with external analysis applications via ZMQ and EPICS process variables. This IPC approach allows Lightfall to orchestrate specialized analysis tools—including GPU-accelerated streaming correlators—without embedding them, avoiding the dependency conflicts common in monolithic scientific software platforms. Compared to prior approaches such as Xi-CAM's plugin-based architecture, Lightfall's design cleanly separates instrument control from domain-specific analysis, enabling feedback-driven acquisition where live analysis results can adjust scan parameters during an experiment. Its native Qt interface provides responsive performance for real-time data visualization that web-based alternatives struggle to match. Lightfall is designed for use by beamline scientists and staff operating synchrotron instruments at national user facilities.

Pandolfi, Ronald [Lawrence Berkeley National Labor↗
DOE OSTI2025

Complex surface topographic changes from explosive experiments at the Dry Alluvium Geology site, southern Nevada, United States

Understanding the surface topographic change that results from underground explosions is important for global security. Current techniques to relate the surface change to underground explosion characteristics usually involve assuming the earth has homogenous properties, leading to highly variable interpretations. Here we use an unoccupied aerial platform and a digital single lens reflex camera along with 200+ ground control points surveyed with a real-time kinematic global navigation satellite system to measure the surface topographic change resulting from two underground explosions at the Dry Alluvium Geology site in Yucca Flat, Nevada National Security Site, southern Nevada, United States. We find areas of 5–7 cm of subsidence that are not directly above the explosion source but rather 200–300 m away. For experiment DAG2, this zone is located south and west of the explosion, while for DAG4, there is a zone of subsidence located northeast of the explosion. In addition, late-time measurements show as much as 5 cm of horizontal change without measurable associated vertical change in the weeks following DAG4 but not DAG2. These indicate that the deformation resulting from underground chemical explosions can be very complex and bear little to no resemblance to predictions using half-space models. It is likely the tectonic environment plays a significant role in controlling the surface change, but the details are not fully understood.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Extreme Scale Infrasound Inversion and Prediction for Weather Characterization and Acute Event Detection

Accurate and timely weather predictions are critical to many aspects of society with a profound impact on our economy, general well-being, and national security. In particular, our ability to forecast severe weather systems is necessary to avoid injuries and fatalities, but also important to minimize infrastructure damage and maximize mitigation strategies. The weather community has developed a range of sophisticated numerical models that are executed at various spatial and temporal scales in an attempt to issue global, regional, and local forecasts in pseudo real time. The accuracy however depends on the time period of the forecast, the nonlinearities of the dynamics, and the target spatial resolution. Significant uncertainties plague these predictions including errors in initial conditions, material properties, data, and model approximations. To address these shortcomings, a continuous data collection occurs at an effort level that is even larger than the modeling process. It has been demonstrated that the accuracy of the predictions depends on the quality of the data and is independent to a certain extent on the sophistication of the numerical models. Data assimilation has become one of the more critical steps in the overall weather prediction business and consequently substantial improvements in the quality of the data would have transformational benefits. This paper describes the use of infrasound inversion technology, enabled through exascale computing, that could potentially achieve orders of magnitude improvement in data quality and therefore transform weather predictions with significant impact on many aspects of our society.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Security constrained optimal power shutoff for wildfire risk mitigation

Abstract Electric grid faults are increasingly the source of ignition for major wildfires. To reduce the likelihood of such ignitions in high risk situations, utilities use preemptive de‐energization of power lines, commonly referred to as Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS). Besides raising challenging trade‐offs between power outages and wildfire safety, PSPS removes redundancy from the network at a time when component faults are likely to happen. This may leave the network particularly vulnerable to unexpected line faults that may occur while the PSPS is in place. Previous works have not explicitly considered the impacts of these outages. To address this gap, the Security Constrained Optimal Power Shutoff problem is proposed which uses post‐contingency security constraints to model the impact of unexpected line faults when planning a PSPS. This model enables, for the first time, the exploration of a wide range of trade‐offs between both wildfire risk and pre‐ and post‐contingency load shedding when designing PSPS plans, providing useful insights for utilities and policy makers considering different approaches to PSPS. The efficacy of the model is demonstrated using the EPRI 39‐bus system as a case study. The results highlight the potential risks of not considering security constraints when planning PSPS and show that incorporating security constraints into the PSPS design process improves the resilience of current PSPS plans.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Energy Emergency and Preparedness Data: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Quick Guidance on Crisis Communications

State Energy Offices and Public Utility Commissions rely on timely, accurate, and actionable information to perform their energy emergency response duties and execute their roles as state energy security planners. In support of this need, the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions (NARUC) hosted an Energy Security and Data Analysis Workshop in Washington, DC to identify energy security response and planning data sources; and to share successful methods of data use and integration in state, federal, and private sector tools. Following the workshop, NASEO and NARUC hosted two topical data-centric webinars based on state priorities to identify best practices in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Crisis Communications programs leveraged in energy assurance planning and response. The Crisis Communications webinar covered best practice tactics for how states can respond during energy emergencies and other crises. Based on the workshop and webinars, this document summarizes commonly used data sources and includes frequently asked questions which may be used by state energy officials (i.e., consisting of staff from Public Utility Commissions and Governor-designated State Energy Offices) to help guide them in developing or improving their Crisis Communications capabilities. A strong public information program is a key crisis management tool. Timely and accurate information helps prevent confusion and uncertainty and encourages public support and cooperation. As energy subject matter experts, state energy officials are vital in the distilling, clarifying, and conveying energy sector information and implications to decision-makers and the public. Other participants in an effective public information program include the Governor’s Office, other state agencies, local governments, energy providers, local businesses, state legislature, and the federal government. It is essential to provide stakeholders and the public with information about the nature, severity, and duration of an emergency because inadequate understanding and awareness can lead to undesirable actions that could further exacerbate the situation. Before a state government can provide information to the public, it must gather information, describe the emergency accurately, and develop recommendations to manage the situation.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Experiences of Member States in Building a Nuclear Security Infrastructure for New Nuclear Power Programmes

A nuclear power programme has many benefits, but it is a major undertaking that requires careful planning and preparation as well as a substantial investment in time. It also necessitates the establishment of a sustainable national infrastructure with committed and sustained financial and human resources. While nuclear power is not unique in this respect, it is different from other sources of energy because of the risks associated with the use of nuclear material, as well as the need for compliance with international legal instruments, internationally accepted nuclear safety standards, nuclear security guidance, and safeguards requirements. The IAEA’s Milestones in the Development of a National Infrastructure for Nuclear Power, IAEA Nuclear Energy Series No. NG-G-3.1 (Rev. 1), defines a phased approach that identifies 19 infrastructure issues that should be addressed in each of the three phases of the development of a nuclear infrastructure for a nuclear power programme. The publication Evaluation of the Status of National Nuclear Infrastructure Development IAEA Nuclear Energy Series NG-T-3.2 (Rev. 2) provides a methodology to determine the status of the infrastructure conditions covering all 19 issues identified in the Milestones Approach. A companion IAEA Implementing Guide, Establishing the Nuclear Security Infrastructure for a Nuclear Power Programme, IAEA Nuclear Security Series No. 19, provides guidance on the recommended actions to be taken by a State to establish an effective national nuclear security infrastructure for a nuclear power programme using the Milestones Approach. This publication is intended to provide guidance based on the experiences and good practices of Member States with embarking nuclear power programmes as well as Member States that are expanding their nuclear power programmes. The guidance is in the form of case studies, which highlight challenges, issues, and solutions identified by Member States as lessons learned for new nuclear power programmes. This TECDOC is designed to present the experiences of Member States to assist other Member States in developing a nuclear security programme. It addresses the key actions necessary to establish an effective national nuclear security infrastructure for a nuclear power programme consistent with the three phases of the IAEA Milestones Approach. The Member States that provided case studies in this document are at different stages in the development of a nuclear power programme.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Mapping Critical Vulnerabilities in Natural Gas Pipeline Systems through Network Centrality and GIS Analytics

Natural gas plays a central role in the US energy landscape, providing 43% of electricity generation in 2023. Its exclusive recovery ability on pipelines for transmission underscores the importance of understanding the disruption recovery ability of this infrastructure. This study employs a network-based analytical framework integrating geographic information systems (GIS) with multiple centrality measures—betweenness, closeness, degree, and eigenvector—to pinpoint key segments and evaluate the structural robustness of the national pipeline network. Pipelines are grouped by System ID and Operator ID to capture variations across organizational and physical structures. The analysis reveals uneven patterns of network influence, where certain pipelines function as critical connectors or dominant hubs. Spatial mapping highlights geographic dependencies and potential chokepoints, offering a clear view of where targeted risk prevention measures would be most effective. The findings provide practical guidance for prioritizing maintenance, enhancing system robustness, and mitigating risks to ensure a stable and secure energy supply. Future research will expand the framework to incorporate dynamic operational data and real-time network behavior.

Peterson, Steven [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000287672998)↗
DOE OSTI2023

Spy in the GPU-box: Covert and Side Channel Attacks on Multi-GPU System

The deep learning revolution has been enabled in large part by GPUs, and more recently accelerators, which make it possible to carry out computationally demanding training and inference in acceptable times. As the size of machine learning networks and workloads continues to increase, multi-GPU machines have emerged as an important platform offered on High Performance Computing and cloud data centers. Since these machines are shared among multiple users, it becomes increasingly important to protect applications against potential attacks. In this paper, we explore the vulnerability of Nvidia's DGX multi-GPU machines to covert and side channel attacks. These machines consist of a number of discrete GPUs that are interconnected through a combination of custom interconnect (NVLink) and PCIe connections. We reverse engineer the interconnected cache hierarchy and show that it is possible for an attacker on one GPU to cause contention on the L2 cache of another GPU. We use this observation to first develop a covert channel attack across two GPUs, achieving the best bandwidth of around 4 MB/s. We also develop a prime and probe attack on a remote GPU allowing an attacker to recover the cache access pattern of another workload. This access pattern can be used in any number of side channel attacks: we demonstrate a proof of concept attack that fingerprints the application running on the remote GPU, with high accuracy. We also develop a proof of concept attack to extract hyperparameters of a machine learning workload. Our work establishes for the first time the vulnerability of these machines to microarchitectural attacks and can guide future research to improve their security.

Dutta, Sankha↗
DOE OSTI2023

Inspection Status Report of Site A/Plot M Report for 2023

The Site A/Plot M Decommissioned Reactor Site was inspected on June 6, 2023. Site A/Plot M is in the Palos Area Preserves, operated by the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. The site was found to be in good condition with negligible erosional concerns across the grass covered mound at Plot M. Landscaping timbers installed along the footpath of Plot M have been effective in reducing erosion down the eastern slope, thus, no additional timber steps are needed at this time. The bike trail, installed by Cook County Forest Preserve, located to the south and east of Plot M has helped to significantly reduce traffic at the site. The Site A and Plot M monuments were both replaced on May 1, 2021, and remain in good condition, despite a small amount of graffiti observed on both monuments at the time of the inspection. The 19 groundwater monitoring wells at Site A/Plot M were found to be secure and in good condition.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
DOE OSTI2025

Policy Brief: California’s Cap-and-Trade Program and Future Direction

The Cap-and-Trade Program, a key part of California’s climate efforts, is a way to gradually increase what it costs an entity (usually a company) to release greenhouse gases into the air. The Program’s goal is to encourage a transition away from fossil fuels. By starting with a relatively low carbon price and steadily increasing it, the Program aims to secure the most cost-effective emission reductions first and gradually move to more expensive ones over time. This design supports economic progress while delivering emission cuts.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Feasibility and Compatibility of Alternative Fuels in the U.S. Rail Sector: Technoeconomic, Lifecycle, and Supply Chain Analysis

The U.S. rail sector is a cornerstone of the United States’ freight transportation system, responsible for moving approximately 40% of long-distance freight ton-miles each year (AAR, 2025). Freight demand is projected to grow over time (BTS, 2017) thereby necessitating the investigation of alternative fuels that can sustain operational efficiency while reducing emissions and cost impacts. At the same time, it is important to explore alternative fuels as new sources of energy that can increase energy security and resilience for this sector. This report investigates the feasibility and compatibility of seven alternative fuels in the U.S. rail sector, focusing on biofuels and fuels from other renewable energy sources. The study evaluates alternative fuel pathways, considering their technical, economic, and environmental aspects to provide stakeholders with a comprehensive understanding of potential solutions.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Secured Reserve Scheduling of Pumped-Storage Hydropower Plants in ISO Day-ahead Market

Due to the fast response ability and high ramping rates, pumped-storage hydropower (PSH) plants are playing an increasingly critical role in mitigating power generation fluctuations induced by the growing proliferation of renewable energy resources. However, because they are energy-limited resources, actual reserve deployment from PSHs would cause the deviation of state-of-charge (SOC) from the scheduled value, which, once accumulated over time, could induce potential violations on SOC limits and cause non-dispatchability of PSHs. In recognizing this potential issue, it can become important to securing the reserve schedule of PSHs and other energy limited resources preventively in the day-ahead market clearing. To ensure reserve dispatchability of PSHs despite SOC deviations, this paper proposes the reserve secure constraints, which are cast as a distributionally robust chance-constrained formulation by judiciously introducing random parameters to describe deployment ratios of scheduled regulation reserve from PSHs. Furthermore, these constraints are converted into tractable second-order cone constraints, and further approximated as linear constraints to be compatible with the current ISO day-ahead market clearing model. A modified IEEE 118-bus system with multiple PSHs is adopted to verify the proposed approach.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Roadmap for a Lightning Modeling Grand Challenge

This document is a roadmap for building an interconnected model of the physical processes that produce a lightning discharge, and its observable optical and radio signals. We call this a Lightning Modeling Grand Challenge, recognizing that significant effort and coordination of human and financial resources is required to realize the capability. The roadmap serves to outline the coordination of resources necessary to enable stitching together existing knowledge and model components to make a lightning prediction, and to test these predictions with observations. Such a capability does not currently exist. The roadmap is motivated not only by a spirit of scientific inquiry, but by practical challenges faced by US Federal and societal stakeholders. Advancements in lightning observations have outpaced our tests of integrated understanding, leaving many stakeholders unsure how to design their missions to properly detect and discriminate lightning, and unsure how to apply the sometimes-disagreeing lightning signals from diverse instruments. The time is right to connect existing theories and models to support stakeholders in understanding the signals they observe, for needs as diverse as climate monitoring, national security, weather forecasting, public safety, and protection of natural and built environments. The roadmap’s two main technical sections describe the components of a linked physical model, followed by a description of models of lightning signals and sensors that are driven by outputs from the physical model. The goal is to predict the time-varying physical properties of lightning that are self-consistent with the thunderstorm’s structure and dynamics. These lightning signals then propagate through the storm, with realistic dispersion and attenuation, to receivers on the ground or in space. At a high level, the model begins with weather (cloud) model output, including explicit prediction of the electrification of cloud particles. The cloud’s electrical structure drives a model of lightning physics, from initiation, through channel development, and discharges along those channels. Key lightning parameters, such as the temperature and currents in the channel, and their space and time distribution, are then used to produce optical and electromagnetic signal sources that propagate to modeled receivers. This architecture therefore generates a dataset suitable for comparison to existing and envisioned observing systems. The need for additional measurements and field campaigns to support model development is described. In each model sub-component, inputs, outputs, uncertainties, evaluation methods, and next steps are summarized, interleaved with references to the scientific literature. Identifying boundaries between the model sub-components aids in segmenting an integrated, complex model into practical work packages and system sub-components, allowing a diverse team to contribute and maintain the system. We estimate that at least five years of effort and a $\$$10M initial investment is necessary to make a significant step forward. Mechanisms to facilitate community coordination, including annual workshops and open-source code repositories, are described.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Security-by-Design: Light Water Small Modular Reactor

The growing demand for nuclear power is increasing pressure to find solutions to cost prohibitive requirements of both construction and security. Offsite response has been proposed as an option to reduce costs associated with training and maintaining an onsite response force. A previous report explored this option and revealed that security could be provided at the required level, but cost savings was not a result of this methodology. An offsite response strategy required costly active and passive delay barriers to provide sufficient time for responders to muster and deploy to a site in time to interrupt a determined and well-equipped adversary. Also, contrary to the hypothesis, the number of responders required for this strategy exceeded that needed for an onsite response force, as the adversaries could avail themselves of advantageous positions within the facility to repel arriving responders. This report builds upon the previous evaluation by using the same hypothetical light water small modular reactor (LWSMR) facility model, but this time an onsite response strategy was assessed. The goal of this analysis was to show that an onsite response strategy could be implemented effectively at a cost point that removes barriers within the industry at this critical time of growth and development. The assessment of the facility design and response strategy was completed through modeling using Scribe3D© and subsequent scenario analysis over the course of a two-day tabletop exercise. Subject matter experts in nuclear security, nuclear facility design, and response strategy and tactics contributed to the effort to ensure accurate representation of hypothetical scenarios. Several adaptations were made to the layout of the LWSMR based on lessons learned during the first day of scenario analysis. The subsequent design evaluated on the second day proved to provide a robust response posture against a large and well-trained adversary force. This report details the process of the analysis and compares the cost of the final facility design with that of the LWSMR model used for evaluation of offsite response. Ultimately, the results of this effort indicate that, when implemented correctly, an onsite response strategy is the best option from a security and cost perspective.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2023

SOLAr Critical Infrastructure Energization (SOLACE): Leveraging Distributed Energy Resources to Provide Local Power

This document is a technical report based on a large-scale DOE-funded project conducted between 2019 and 2022. The project, called SOLAr Critical infrastructure Energization (SOLACE), is aimed at leveraging distributed energy resources (DERs) to provide local power to communities, feeders, or other regions. The project included a particular focus on high-value critical loads such as municipal water supply, telecommunication hubs, and disaster shelters. The key developments of the project were: (1) A comprehensive pre-event power system analysis methodology that identifies and characterizes the viable local power options. (2) A DMS-based example control system for activating and operating the local power solution during a time of crisis. (3) Grid-forming inverter technology to enable isolated local power operation and black-starting. (4) Cyber-security considerations for isolated systems when wider-area communication may be offline. This report describes the overall process that identifies and assesses the viable DER-based local power solutions for a given facility, region, or community. The report documents the process, including the key analysis steps, tools required, data requirements, and recommended pass/fail criteria for each step. It also provides a sample implementation of this process through a test case. Finally, it provides details of how a viable pre-event plan can be selected and activated at go-time when an event has occurred.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗