FERC 2222 & DER policy and implementation report
Summary of the latest developments in FERC Order 2222 and DER policy implementation for September 2025.
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
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Renewable Thermal Energy Systems: Systemic Challenges and Transformational Policies (Report 2)
Two important challenges for RTES are the need for significant further innovation and deployment, particularly in the United States. In the face of continued success of other renewable energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaics (PV) and land-based wind energy for electricity, it is worthwhile to evaluate the current state of select RTES technologies in the context of technology innovation systems and energy transitions. This report marks a departure from the existing body of research we are aware of and have contributed to relating to RTES applications for industrial process heat in the United States. Our objectives for this report are fourfold: 1) Begin considering the challenges of RTES deployment in the United States through application of socio-technical and transitions frameworks; 2) Begin applying the theory of RTES as configurational technology innovation systems in the United States and for industrial process heat specifically; 3) Review RTES innovation, policies, and market formation activities in the contexts of Objectives 1 and 2; 4) Identify future paths for RTES research. Ultimately, the challenges associated with scaling the deployment of RTES in the United States are related to the need to develop a well-functioning innovation system that can overcome resistance from a highly stable socio-technical regime within a shrinking window of time to address the climate crisis, U.S. industrial competitiveness, and volatile energy commodity price shocks. Current efforts toward scaling for RTES applications in industry and buildings emphasize the need for further cost reductions, but not for interventions that support actors and their interactions and that increase the legitimacy of the technologies. As a result, there are significant opportunities to analyze the social contexts of RTES that can then be used to inform the design of effective, transformational policy portfolios.
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
Environmental outcomes of the US Renewable Fuel Standard
Biofuels are included in many proposed strategies to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and limit the magnitude of global warming. The US Renewable Fuel Standard is the world’s largest existing biofuel program, yet despite its prominence, there has been limited empirical assessment of the program’s environmental outcomes. Even without considering likely international land use effects, we find that the production of corn-based ethanol in the United States has failed to meet the policy’s own greenhouse gas emissions targets and negatively affected water quality, the area of land used for conservation, and other ecosystem processes. Our findings suggest that profound advances in technology and policy are still needed to achieve the intended environmental benefits of biofuel production and use.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
So you think you can track?
This work introduces a multi-camera tracking dataset consisting of 234 hours of video data recorded concurrently from 234 overlapping HD cameras covering a 4.2 mile stretch of 8-10 lane interstate highway near Nashville, TN. Video is recorded in cooperation with Tennessee State Department of Transportation and its policies. The video is recorded during a period of high traffic density with 500+ objects typically visible within the scene and typical object longevities of 3-15 minutes. GPS trajectories from 270 vehicle passes through the scene are manually corrected in the video data to provide a set of ground-truth trajectories for recall-oriented tracking metrics, and object detections are provided for each camera in the scene (159 million total before cross-camera fusion). Initial benchmarking of tracking-by-detection algorithms is performed against the GPS trajectories, and a best HOTA of only 9.5% is obtained (best recall 75.9% at IOU 0.1, 47.9 average IDs per ground truth object), indicating the benchmarked trackers do not perform sufficiently well at the long temporal and spatial durations required for traffic scene understanding. Video data, scene information, and vehicle trajectories are made publicly available at i24motion.org.
42 ENGINEERING↗
Innovations in Building Energy Modeling: Research and Development Opportunities for Emerging Technologies
Building energy modeling (BEM) is a multipurpose tool for building energy efficiency (EE). The U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Office (BTO) seeks to expand the use and effectiveness of BEM in the design and operation of commercial and residential buildings with the goal of achieving lasting reductions in total and peak energy use. This report identifies gaps and outlines recommended initiatives to achieve this goal, based on a combination of technical analysis and stakeholder input. In addition to BTO, this report can benefit BEM professionals (architects, mechanical engineers, energy consultants, building auditors, equipment manufacturers, and BEM software vendors) and BEM clients (building owners and operators, EE program administrators, EE service providers, policymakers, and policy and code jurisdictions such as states and cities). This report was developed in two phases. In the first, BTO worked with a team from Navigant Consulting (now Guidehouse) to characterize objectives, opportunities, and current activities; identify gaps and barriers; and define initiatives. To collect input, Navigant conducted telephone interviews and workshops with industry experts. The initial phase produced a draft report, which was released for public review in 2016 and yielded over 400 comments. Based on these comments, BTO compiled a second draft report that addressed many of those comments while acknowledging changes that had occurred both at BTO and in the industry. Unlike the first draft report, the second focused much more heavily on BTO’s own role, portfolio, and activities. BTO is a direct player in the BEM field - it funds the development of several significant software packages that are embedded in commercial products - and transparency about its goals and future plans is requisite. BTO recognizes that a great number of other public and private organizations contribute to the BEM enterprise. With the second draft report, BTO did not attempt to produce a blueprint for the industry as a whole, but rather a working document BTO can use to iteratively solicit stakeholder input and synthesize it into a program. BTO released the second draft report for public review in 2019. The second round of review generated 83 pages of feedback and comments - almost exactly the length of the draft report itself - a significant portion of which was collected and synthesized by IBPSA-USA Advocacy Committee. This final report incorporates this feedback. This report does not address the use of BEM in support of building-based grid services, a recent BTO initiative called Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEB). In 2019, BTO published a report that specifically addresses the role of BEM - and other “integration” technologies - in GEB.
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2020. Final Report
The U.S. Department of Energy requires that all its site facilities develop an annual site environmental report to comply with DOE Order 231.1B, Chg 1, and DOE Order 458.1, Admin Chg 4. This report provides a synopsis of calendar year 2020 information related to environmental management performance and compliance efforts at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It summarizes site compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws, regulations, policies, directives, permits, and Orders, and provides environmental management performance benchmarks and their status to the public, regulatory agencies, community officials, Native American tribes, and public interest groups.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Hawai‘i Play Fairway (Final Report)
Most of Hawai'i's geothermal resources are blind—their manifestations, such as hot springs and steam vents, do not appear on the ground surface because the heated water flows far below. With the exception of $K\bar{i}lauea East Rift Zone$, in most areas of Hawai'i, high lateral permeability in the first kilometer below ground surface prevents surface thermal features from developing. As a methodology for discovering these blind resources, Play Fairway Analysis (PFA) involves finding potential locations of blind hydrothermal systems and describing potential geothermal sources in rift-zone settings. Using the PFA to find Hawai'i's geothermal resources, the University of Hawai'i (UH) conducted the Hawai‘i Play Fairway Project, Hawai'i's first statewide geothermal resource assessment since 1985. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Hawai'i Play Fairway Project provided an updated resource assessment, a roadmap for additional exploration activities, and the identification of areas for further exploration. Benefitting from UH's core competency in earth sciences and experienced geothermal researchers, the project comprised three phases. During the first phase, the team identified, compiled, and ranked existing geologic, groundwater, and geophysical datasets relevant to subsurface heat, fluid and permeability. Using a Bayesian statistical approach, the team developed a statistical methodology to integrate these data into a resource probability map. The team evaluated the confidence in the probability value and considered development viability of areas with geothermal resources. With these analyses, the team identified 10 locations in the Hawaiian Islands for exploration activities. For the second phase, the team collected new groundwater data in 10 locations across the state and new geophysical data on $L\bar{a}na‘i, Maui$, and central Hawai'i Island and modeled topographically induced stress to better characterize subsurface permeability. Analyzing the subsurface stresses, the team evaluated the potential for fracture-induced permeability. The team inverted the MT and gravity data to produce 3D models of resistivity and density, respectively, on $L\bar{a}na‘i$, across $Haleakal\bar{a}'s$ SW rift (Maui), and surrounding Mauna Kea (Hawai‘i Island). The team developed and applied a new method for incorporating depth information about resistivity, density, and potential for fracture-induced permeability into the statistical method for computing resource probability in these three focus areas. The team incorporated the new groundwater results with the new geophysical results and the calculations of potential for fracture-induced permeability to produce updated maps of resource probability and confidence. Through combining data from the first and second phases, the team determined locations for further exploration during the third phase. For MT and gravity surveys, the team recommended $Kaua'i's$ $L\bar{i}hu'e$ $Basin$, the east rift of $Maui's$ $Haleakal\bar{a}$ volcano, and the southwest rift of Hawai'i Island's Mauna Loa volcano. The MT and gravity surveys aimed to enable improved confidence in the resource potential in these locations. For drilling deep groundwater well(s), the team recommended Southeast Mauna Kea and $L\bar{a}na's$ $P\bar{a}l\bar{a}wai$ $Basin$. During the third phase, further exploration involved drilling a groundwater well in $L\bar{a}na's$ $P\bar{a}l\bar{a}wai$ $Basin$ and performing more geophysical surveys. We deepened an existing water well proximal to our target area on $L\bar{a}na'i$ due to funding constraints that precluded us from spudding a new well that would exceed 1km depth. Drilling was preceded by a number of substantial elements including: writing an Environmental Assessment and the subsequent legal process, performance of deviation logging, lowering a camera down the well, coordinating site preparation with $P\bar{u}lama$ $L\bar{a}na'i$, shipping the UH-owned rig interisland, procuring supplies, and leading 3 community meetings on $L\bar{a}na'i$. Drilling occurred 24/7 the entire month of June 2019 over which time $L\bar{a}na'i$ $Well$ 10 was deepened from 427 m to 1057 m, with continuous core collected. We measured a roughly linear temperature gradient averaging 42°C/km and a maximum bottom hole temperature of 66°C. This gradient is more than twice the background for Hawai'i and within a range of gradients measured in this depth range for some exploration wells within KERZ. We consider these results encouraging for $L\bar{a}na'i's$ resource potential and recommend following with a slim hole within $L\bar{a}na'i's$ caldera (our target zone) to ~ 2 km. Further, the positive implications such results have for the island of O‘ahu are substantial - the shield stage of O'ahu's volcanoes ended 1-2 My earlier. However, O'ahu uses more electricity than the rest of the islands combined, and the utility recently called for 500-700MW of firm, dispatchable renewable electricity on O'ahu by 2033. In Phase 3, we also collected limited new encouraging groundwater data, and updated our thoughts on the probabilities of fluid and permeability at resource depths (Pr F = 1; Pr P = mostly unconstrained). Ultimately, we advocate for using our final probability of heat, and confidence in this probability, to drive the next phase of exploration. We contend further development of geothermal in Hawai‘i will enable the state to achieve its 100% renewable policy objective and Hawai'i to transition off of fossil fuels through geothermal discovery and development. The project not only produced a large amount of data and expanded the existing knowledge of Hawai'i's geothermal resources, but also produced publications, theses, presentations, core photos, datasets, media reports, television interviews, community events, and a blog. Students and new professionals benefitted from the project's hands-on research experiences and educational opportunities and earned awards and recognition.
15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2021 (Final Report)
The U.S. Department of Energy requires that all its site facilities develop an annual site environmental report to comply with DOE Order 231.1B Chg 1 and DOE Order 458.1 Admin Chg 4. This report provides a synopsis of calendar year 2021 information related to environmental management performance and compliance efforts at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It summarizes site compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws, regulations, policies, directives, permits, and Orders, and provides environmental management performance benchmarks and their status to the public, regulatory agencies, community officials, Native American tribes, and public interest groups.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2022 (Final Report)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), one of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science’s 10 national laboratories, provides innovative science and technology development in the areas of energy and the environment, fundamental and computational science, and national security. There are three DOE offices within the Richland area. Two are responsible for the Hanford Site, whereas the Pacific Northwest Site Office (PNSO) oversees PNNL. PNNL prepares this Annual Site Environmental Report to meet the requirements of DOE Order 231.1B, Environmental, Safety and Health Reporting, and DOE Order 458.1, Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment, assuring that the public is informed of any PNNL-Richland Campus or PNNL-Sequim Campus event that could adversely affect the health and safety of the public, site staff, or the environment. The report provides a synopsis of ongoing environmental management performance and compliance activities for operations that occur on the PNNL-Richland Campus in Richland, Washington, and at the PNNL-Sequim Campus near Sequim, Washington. It describes the location of and background for each facility; addresses compliance with applicable DOE, federal, state, and local regulations, and site-specific permits; documents environmental monitoring efforts and their status; presents potential radiation doses to staff and the public in the surrounding areas; and describes DOE-required data quality assurance methods used for data verification. The ASER summarizes site compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws, regulations, policies, directives, permits, and Orders, and provides environmental management performance benchmarks and their status to the public, regulatory agencies, community officials, Native American tribes, and public interest groups.
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
A Review of the Generic Grid-Forming Model Used by the System Operator in Chile
The objective in this project is to verify the applicability of using generic electro-magnetic transient domain models of GFM technology through a wide range of tests and system conditions proposed by subject matter experts of GFM technology through a wide range of tests and system conditions proposed by subject matter experts. For this study, we used the generic GFM electro-magnetic transient model available in the EMTP (Electromagnetic Transient Program) software library, and we assessed the model’s various GFM capabilities through 12 tests. In this report, we compare the performance of the model with that of an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) GFM model. We also share the key insights and lessons learned from this work.
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
Review of Technical Requirements for Inverter-Based Resources in Chile
This document compares the technical requirements in the grid code of Chile (NTSyCS) against the EirGrid (Ireland transmission system operator) and National Grid Electricity System Operator (NESO) grid codes and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2800-2022 standard for conventional inverter technology at the transmission and subtransmission levels in the process of being adopted by system operators in the U.S. The document is intended to be a guide and reference for future updates of the NTSyCS, considering the local system requirements and present improvements in inverter-based resource (IBR) technology. In light of the findings of the aforementioned comparative review, this document proposes and describes the requirements for conventional IBRs that could be incorporated and updated into the Chilean grid code. The document is structured around the main grid challenges posed by the transition to an IBR-dominated grid and conventional IBRs capabilities to help address them. This document does not provide guidance on how this specification should be implemented (e.g., through a mandate or market solution).
24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
Energy to Communities (E2C) 2025 Annual Highlights
In 2025, E2C provided customized technical assistance to representatives from 166 communities to improve reliability, affordability, and overall delivery of energy throughout the United States.
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
The Space Exploration Initiative: a challenge to advanced life support technologies: keynote presentation
President Bush has enunciated an unparalleled, open-ended commitment to human exploration of space called the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI). At the heart of the SEI is permanent human presence beyond Earth orbit, which implies a new emphasis on life science research and life support system technology. Proposed bioregenerative systems for planetary surface bases will require carefully designed waste processing elements whose development will lead to streamlined and efficient and efficient systems for applications on Earth.
Ecological Systems, Closed↗
A Space-Based Near-Earth Object Survey Telescope in Support of Human Exploration, Solar System Science, and Planetary Defense
Human exploration of near-Earth objects (NEOs) beginning in 2025 is one of the stated objectives of U.S. National Space Policy. Piloted missions to these bodies would further development of deep space mission systems and technologies, obtain better understanding of the origin and evolution of our Solar System, and support research for asteroid deflection and hazard mitigation strategies. As such, mission concepts have received much interest from the exploration, science, and planetary defense communities. One particular system that has been suggested by all three of these communities is a space-based NEO survey telescope. Such an asset is crucial for enabling affordable human missions to NEOs circa 2025 and learning about the primordial population of objects that could present a hazard to the Earth in the future.
Abell, Paul A.↗
Near-Earth Objects: Targets for Future Human Exploration, Solar System Science, and Planetary Defense
Human exploration of near-Earth objects (NEOs) beginning circa 2025 - 2030 is one of the stated objectives of U.S. National Space Policy. Piloted missions to these bodies would further development of deep space mission systems and technologies, obtain better understanding of the origin and evolution of our Solar System, and support research for asteroid deflection and hazard mitigation strategies. This presentation will discuss some of the physical characteristics of NEOs and review some of the current plans for NEO research and exploration from both a human and robotic mission perspective.
Abell, Paul A.↗
Understanding The Top-Of-Atmosphere Fluxes Difference Between Aerocom Phase III Models And The CERES Product: Clear-Sky Perspective
The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project produces a long-term global climate data record (CDR) that can be used to detect decadal changes in the Earth’s radiation budget (ERB) from the surface to the top-of-atmosphere (TOA). The CERES Energy Balanced and Filled (EBAF) product includes monthly mean shortwave (SW), longwave (LW), and net TOA all-sky and clear-sky radiative fluxes over 1-degree latitude by 1-degree longitude regions. The EBAF SW and LW fluxes are adjusted within their uncertainties to be consistent with the heat storage in the Earth-atmosphere system (Johnson et al. 2016). EBAF also provides a gap-free monthly mean clear-sky flux map by inferring clear-sky fluxes from both CERES and MODIS measurements (Loeb et al. 2018). In this study, we compare the TOA clear-sky fluxes from Aerocom phase III output with those from the CERES EBAF products. Flux differences over the ocean are generally smaller than over the land, and the magnitude of the differences shows seasonal and regional dependency. To understand the flux differences, aerosol optical depths (AOD) from the Aerocom models are compared with the satellite retrievals from MODIS and MISR. Over the ocean, the AOD differences and the flux differences show consistent regional features, indicating that the differences between models and observations are robust as the CERES EBAF clear-sky SW fluxes and MODIS/MISR AODs are determined independently. However, very little resemblance is found between the AOD and flux differences over the land. To further understand the cause of the flux differences over the land, we compare the land surface albedo from MODIS with the albedo from the models and find consistency in regional albedo differences and flux differences. Monthly regional radiative kernels of AOD and surface albedo derived using the MERRA-2 reanalysis data (Thorsen et al. 2020) are applied to AOD and surface albedo differences between models and observations. For most of the models, the AOD and surface albedo differences can explain most of the flux differences between models and CERES EBAF. The EOS era satellites have provided 20 years of carefully calibrated and validated observations that are suitable for trend analysis. Both the MODIS AOD and CERES EBAF clear-sky SW flux show decreasing trends over the coastal regions of eastern China and the eastern United States due to the emission control policies enforced in both countries, and an increasing trend off the coast of India. The AOD and clear-sky SW flux trends are less consistent over land, as the surface albedo changes complicate the clear-sky SW flux trend. The AOD and clear-sky SW flux trends from the Oslo model HIST run are also examined. However, none of the aforementioned regional trends are found in the model results.
Wenying Su↗
Collision Avoidance Approach Using Deep Reinforcement Learning
A method to enable autonomous robots moving in a 2D space collision free motivates the purposed approach for collision avoidance for autonomous UAM vehicles. Challenges of autonomous collision free navigation for both problems are similar. Agents in each environment do not know the intent, or goal, of the other. Finding the time efficient paths require some level of anticipation with neighboring agents which is computationally expensive. In the original work, these obstacles were overcome with a novel application of deep reinforcement learning which offloads the online computation to an offline learning algorithm. A value network that encodes the estimated time to the goal given the agent’s state and the observable portion of the other agent’s state is trained on a baseline policy and further refined with reinforcement learning to promote time efficient collision free navigation. Online, the value network efficiently informs the agent’s decision making in the face of uncertainty of the other agent’s next move. In this paper, challenges extending this methodology to the 3D environment of autonomous UAM vehicles with kinematic constraints are discussed and initial results shown.
Collision Avoidance↗
Collision Avoidance Approach Using Deep Reinforcement Learning
A method to enable autonomous robots moving in a 2D space collision free motivates the purposed approach for collision avoidance for autonomous UAM vehicles. Challenges of autonomous collision free navigation for both problems are similar. Agents in each environment do not know the intent, or goal, of the other. Finding the time efficient paths require some level of anticipation with neighboring agents which is computationally expensive. In the original work, these obstacles were overcome with a novel application of deep reinforcement learning which offloads the online computation to an offline learning algorithm. A value network that encodes the estimated time to the goal given the agent’s state and the observable portion of the other agent’s state is trained on a baseline policy and further refined with reinforcement learning to promote time efficient collision free navigation. Online, the value network efficiently informs the agent’s decision making in the face of uncertainty of the other agent’s next move. In this paper, challenges extending this methodology to the 3D environment of autonomous UAM vehicles with kinematic constraints are discussed and initial results shown.
Collision Avoidance↗