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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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21 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

SolarAPP+ Performance Review (2024 Data)

The Solar Automated Permit Processing Plus (SolarAPP+) platform is an online portal to facilitate and expedite rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage permitting processes. SolarAPP+ allows PV contractors to upload system specifications, have that information automatically reviewed for code compliance, and receive instant approval for code-compliant systems, reducing authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) staff time needed for review. SolarAPP+ also provides inspection checklists to verify installation practices and adherence to approved designs. This report is part of an ongoing series of reviews of SolarAPP+ performance. Consistent with previous performance reviews, we summarize SolarAPP+ adoption trends to date and compare various metrics for PV systems permitted through SolarAPP+ versus systems permitted through traditional AHJ permitting processes. As of the end of 2024, 799 AHJs had expressed interest in the platform, with 264 fully adopting (215) or piloting (49) the platform. In 2024, 861 installers submitted 37,393 permits through the SolarAPP+ platform, including 27,375 permits for PV+storage systems. SolarAPP+ permits accounted for around 43% of all permits issued in all participating AHJs, and more than 60% of all permits in several participating AHJs. We compare permitting timelines through SolarAPP+ to traditional AHJ permitting processes to assess the platform's performance. Consistent with previous SolarAPP+ performance reviews, we find that permitting timelines are significantly shorter for SolarAPP+ projects. Based on median timelines, a typical SolarAPP+ project is permitted and inspected 12 business days sooner than traditional projects. We estimate that automatic SolarAPP+ permitting saved around 18,400 hours of AHJ staff time in 2024. Finally, we estimate that SolarAPP+ eliminated over 100,000 business days in permitting-related delays in 2024.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Resource Assessment for Distributed Wind Energy: An Evaluation of Best-Practice Methods in the Continental US

Current wind resources within the United States (US) indicate a potential to profitably install nearly 1,400 gigawatts of distributed wind (DW) capacity. This amount is equivalent to over half of the United States’ current energy demand from electricity, making it enough to power millions of homes and businesses and replace countless fossil fuel-based generating plants. Despite the potential growth of DW in the US, deployments are presently hindered by a lack of confidence in resource estimation methods. One potential challenge is that smaller-scale turbines, with hub heights of 40 meters or less, are disproportionately impacted by obstacles such as buildings and vegetation. These obstacles may produce complex wake effects, best modeled with high-fidelity complex fluid dynamics (CFD) models that are too computationally expensive to use for routine siting and resource assessment. Thus, installers today make use of heuristics and simple equations to approximate the impact of obstacles while also leveraging long-term resource data from commercial or publicly available atmospheric models. This study evaluates these historical and commonly used methods alongside new lower-order obstacle models produced from CFD simulations and measurement-based bias correction. The preliminary results from this study show the importance of taking care in the choice and application of mesoscale atmospheric models and the significant value of bias correction using measurements from nearby meteorological towers. Detailed obstacle modeling provides only modest additional gains in performance and, in some cases, can add error, especially at sites where turbines have already been located to avoid obvious impact from upwind obstacles. These findings reinforce the importance of collecting in situ measurements and suggest that obstacle models may be better applied in practice to automated or computer-aided siting, rather than in economic wind resource assessments.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

SolarAPP+ Performance Review (2023 Data)

The Solar Automated Permit Processing Plus (SolarAPP+) platform is an online portal to facilitate and expedite rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage permitting processes. SolarAPP+ allows PV contractors to upload system specifications, have that information automatically reviewed for code compliance, and receive instant approval for code-compliant systems, reducing authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) staff time needed for review. SolarAPP+ also provides inspection checklists to verify installation practices and adherence to approved designs. SolarAPP+ is available to AHJs at no cost. This report is part of an ongoing series of reviews of SolarAPP+ performance. Consistent with previous performance reviews, we summarize SolarAPP+ adoption trends to date and compare various metrics for PV systems permitted through SolarAPP+ versus systems permitted through traditional AHJ permitting processes. As of the end of 2023, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) had contacted over 1,700 AHJs with significant solar permitting volume regarding SolarAPP+. Of those, 793 AHJs had expressed interest in the platform as of the end of 2023. 161 AHJs had begun piloting the platform and 97 of these had publicly launched the platform by the end of 2023. In 2023, 668 installers submitted 18,906 permits through the SolarAPP+ platform, including 4,834 permits submitted as part of a solar plus storage program. SolarAPP+ permits accounted for around 43% of all permits issued in participating AHJs. We compare permitting timelines through SolarAPP+ to traditional AHJ permitting processes to assess the platform's performance. Consistent with previous SolarAPP+ performance reviews, we find that permitting timelines are significantly shorter for SolarAPP+ projects. Based on median timelines, a typical SolarAPP+ project is permitted and inspected 14.5 business days sooner than traditional projects. We estimate that automatic SolarAPP+ permitting saved around 7,200 hours of AHJ staff time in 2023. Finally, we estimate that SolarAPP+ eliminated over 150,000 business days in permitting-related delays in 2023.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗