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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 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

DOE EV Data Collection - Facility Data

Facility data includes information on electricity consumption by larger-scale infrastructure, including buildings, solar arrays, and energy storage systems. Parameter definitions can be found in the data dictionary. If a connection between specific vehicle information and facility data exists, it will be available in the vehicle attributes table. Vehicle ID can be used as a key between vehicle data and vehicle attribute tables. Data is being uploaded quarterly through 2023 and subject to change until the conclusion of the project.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2025

Physical properties, internal structure, and the three‐dimensional petrography of CI chondrites

physical properties and the nature of their breccation, we investigated nine samples of the Ivuna and Orgueil CI chondrites ranging in size from 1 mm to 4 cm in approximate diameter. The combined mass of unique material investigated in this work is 113 g. For our investigations, we use ideal gas pycnometry, 3-D laser scanning, x-ray computed microtomography (μCT), and accompanying digital data extraction techniques. We found that the bulk density of the samples ranged from 1.61 to 2.10 g cm −3 . Larger samples tend to have a lower bulk density. Grain density (ranging from 2.44 to 2.55 g cm −3 ) is significantly less variable than the bulk density in our samples and the quantity of porosity (ranging from 14.6% to 33.8%) is the dominant factor in determining the bulk density of CI chondrite material. Our μCT results show that the visible porosity across all sizes of our CI chondrite samples is in the form of cracks, but these cracks can account for less than two-thirds of the porosity in the CI chondrites. Other porosity is not visible, even at μCT resolutions of 2.7 μm voxel edge −1 and we conclude that it is sub-micron in nature. It is not clear if the cracks seen in our samples are indigenous to the chondrites or are a result of terrestrial processes. We also find that the CI chondrites are excellent examples of the fractal-like nature of brecciation, where clasts can be observed at all scales we imaged. The breccias are composed of sub-equant-shaped and sub-rounded-textured clasts like melt-free impact breccias on other solar system bodies. From our μCT volume and digital data extraction, we determine that the Ivuna CI chondrite breccia is organized: the mostly sub-equant clasts within our ~2 cm chunk of Ivuna have a mean diameter of 1.33 mm and their aligned longest axes define a lineation structure. We speculate that the lineation was imparted after fragmentation of the clasts by slight shear on the parent asteroid which could be the result of seismic-related granular flow or mild non-axial impact-related compaction. These data will help to place returned asteroidal material from asteroids 162173 Ryugu and 101955 Bennu and the CI chondrites into a mutual geological context.

CI chondrite↗
DOE OSTI2025

U.S. Agrivoltaics Irradiance Database

This is a foundational data set for research and deployment of agrivoltaics, which is the co-location of agriculture and solar power plants on the same land. This irradiance and shading dataset can be utilized to determine the suitability of agrivoltaics configurations for a given region and crop-type. The data is hourly, 4x4 km resolution across the contiguous United States and Hawaii. It is calculated from the National Solar Radiation Database sites, using the System Advisor Model (SAM) to simulate the shading patterns for 10 common agrivoltaics configurations. Sunlight availability data is reported for 10 locations on the ground between adjacent rows of solar panels, as well as averaged across areas of interest such as the average irradiance in the edge-to-edge open area or across 3-6 planting beds. Other available metrics include the input meteorological data from the NSRDB (e.g. global horizontal irradiance, wind speed, etc.) and estimates for comparing energy and agricultural characteristic across the 10 configurations, including power output per acre or per kW installed capacity and farmable land area per acre.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Best Practices Handbook for the Collection and Use of Solar Resource Data for Solar Energy Applications: Fourth Edition

As the world increasingly seeks low-carbon energy solutions, solar power emerges as the most abundant resource on our planet. However, the challenge of effectively harnessing this energy is crucial in the coming years. Solar energy applications such as photovoltaics, solar heating and cooling, and concentrating solar power use different technologies to capitalize on sunlight. Each system has unique capabilities and requirements, underscoring the need for reliable information about solar resources across diverse installations, from residential rooftops to large-scale power plants. This is especially important for substantial projects, often exceeding $1 billion in construction costs. Before embarking on such ventures, it is imperative to obtain accurate data concerning solar resource quality and reliability at specific sites. Developers require detailed historical information, including seasonal, daily, hourly, and, ideally, subhourly variability to effectively predict a power plant's annual performance. Without these vital data, financial analyses fall short. Moreover, with the growing adoption of distributed photovoltaics, integrating these generation sources becomes critical to maintaining grid reliability and stability. By accurately forecasting generation patterns, utilities and system operators can facilitate greater integration of solar energy, thus ensuring the operational stability of the grid. The complexity and importance of these issues have prompted the foremost experts in the field to collaborate under the auspices of the International Energy Agency's (IEA's) Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (PVPS) Task 16 to publish this handbook, which summarizes state-of-the-art information about all these topics. The efforts focus on providing reliable data and insights that can help shape our investments in solar energy and drive a sustainable future.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

PV Degradation Modeling: Applying Geospatial Workflows with "PVDeg"

Accurate degradation modeling is essential for predicting photovoltaic (PV) module performance, estimating longevity and informing design decisions. With degradation rates varying significantly by location, geospatial analysis is critical for PV and broader applications, such as agrivoltaics, weathering and environmental data analysis. This work presents PVDeg, an open-source tool designed for geospatial degradation analysis. PVDeg integrates meteorological data from global sources, including the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) and Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS), with degradation models. The toolkit enables users to customize geospatial workflows by integrating weather data, material parameters, and user-defined Python functions. It facilitates accelerated downloads of NSRDB and PVGIS datasets and optimizes geospatial point selection to preserve data density in regions of interest. Additionally, PVDeg provides a local database for storage and spatial queries, supporting large-scale analyses without the need for high-performance computing (HPC) resources. PVDeg provides a foundational workflow that extends its utility beyond PV applications, enabling researchers to analyze geospatial processes across discipline.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Education for PV Modeling Professionals: Observations from the 2025 PVPMC Workshop

We surveyed professionals in the photovoltaic industry to understand interests in education and training for performance modeling of solar power systems. We found that most professionals are self-taught and rely on a variety of public sources of technical materials. Available formal education, such as courses or certification programs, either lacks detail or is focused on software user training. Responses indicate several opportunities to create public resources that would benefit professional learning for solar power system modeling: • Create a glossary of terms and common variable names. • Develop guidance on uncertainty analysis in the context of solar power systems modeling. • Assemble a catalog of available educational materials and data sources.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Addressing the split incentive challenge for rooftop solar PV and battery energy storage in multifamily rental buildings (CRADA 638 Final Report)

This project advances the understanding of how roof solar PV systems and battery energy storage systems (BESS) can be effectively deployed in multifamily residential buildings, a sector that has historically faced barriers due to misaligned incentives between landlords and tenants. By leveraging high-resolution building stock data and simulation tools, the research demonstrates how energy consumption patterns vary across building types, climates, and occupant characteristics, and how these variations influence the optimal sizing and operation of distributed energy resources. A key contribution is the development of a publicly accessible, web-based tool named RESIDE (Residential Energy Systems & Infrastructure Data Evaluation) that allows users to explore building energy use and evaluate solar and battery configurations without requiring specialized expertise. This significantly lowers the barrier to entry for stakeholders such as property owners, utilities, and policymakers. From a technical perspective, the project shows that integrating rooftop solar PV with battery energy storage can substantially reduce electricity costs and peak demand through strategies such as energy arbitrage and peak shaving. The modeling framework incorporates real-world constraints, including time-of-use electricity pricing and battery degradation, providing realistic and actionable insights. Economically, the results indicate that properly sized systems can deliver meaningful cost savings, improving the feasibility of energy investments in multifamily housing. More broadly, the project benefits the public by supporting the transition to affordable and reliable energy, particularly in rental multifamily housing where adoption has traditionally lagged.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

The U.S. Agrivoltaic Shading Tool: A National-Scale Interface for Modeling Light and Shade Patterns in Ten Common Agrivoltaic Configurations

Agrivoltaic systems are dual-use configurations that co-locate agriculture and photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure and require careful design to balance crop performance and energy generation. A critical element of agrivoltaic design is the spatial and temporal distribution of irradiance and shade within and around PV arrays. To support research, planning, and stakeholder decision-making, we introduce the U.S. Agrivoltaic Shading Tool, a novel web-based application that delivers high-resolution irradiance and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) modeling for ten standardized PV configurations across the conterminous United States. The tool leverages the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) System Advisor Model (SAM) to perform detailed irradiance simulations, using meteorological data from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB). Outputs include seasonal, monthly, weekly, and diurnal patterns of available sunlight, amount of shade, irradiance, and PAR at ground level within agrivoltaic system footprints. For a user's selected location, these results are visualized through interactive visualizations, heatmaps, and time-series plots, designed to be accessible to both technical and non-technical users. In addition to facilitating rapid spatial exploration of agrivoltaic light environments, the tool will offer seamless integration with the InSPIRE Agrivoltaics Design and Analysis Model (ADAM). This optional workflow will allow users to port selected site and configuration parameters into a more advanced modeling environment for further customization of structural layouts, crop-system compatibility, power generation, and technoeconomic performance. Finally, to promote open science, the entire dataset will be hosted and available for open access through the OpenEI platform. By standardizing and disseminating high-quality irradiance data and design tools, the U.S. Agrivoltaic Shading Tool supports a wide range of users, including researchers, landowners, energy developers, and policymakers, in evaluating the agronomic and energetic feasibility of agrivoltaic systems across the United States.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Open data sets for assessing photovoltaic system reliability

Photovoltaic (PV) systems have become a cornerstone of renewable energy strategies, particularly due to the significant reduction in solar power costs over the past decade. However, the long-term reliability of PV installations presents a persistent challenge, requiring the development of advanced monitoring and predictive maintenance strategies. A wide range of data types is used to evaluate the health of PV systems, including environmental conditions, electrical performance, and inspection imagery. These data enable methodologies such as machine learning (ML) models for lifetime prediction and computer vision techniques for defect detection. However, the acquisition of high-quality and comprehensive data is difficult, particularly in terms of long-term consistency and data variety. Publicly available data sets serve as valuable resources for addressing these challenges, but they often suffer from fragmentation and are difficult to access. This paper presents a comprehensive review of existing open-source data sets related to PV degradation, analyzing their features, functionalities, and potential applications. We categorize these data sets based on the specific aspects of PV system information they cover, such as environmental conditions, operational monitoring, image inspection and module materials, and propose relevant tools and ML models for processing them. In addition, we propose practices for future data collection and usage, while also discussing potential directions in data-driven research. Our aim is to enhance data utilization and publication among researchers and industry professionals, promoting a deeper understanding of the role of data in enhancing the performance and durability of PV systems.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Siting Analysis of a Solar-Nuclear-Desalination Integrated Energy System

Nuclear power is typically deployed as a baseload generator. Increased penetration of variable renewables motivates combining nuclear and renewable technologies into Integrated Energy Systems (IES) to improve dispatchability, component synergies and, through cogeneration, address multiple markets. However, combining multiple energy resources heavily depends on the proper selection of each system’s location and design limitations. In this paper, co-siting options for IES that couple nuclear and concentrating solar power (CSP) with thermal desalination are investigated. A comprehensive siting analysis is performed that utilizes global information survey data to determine possible co-siting options for nuclear and solar thermal generation in the United States. Viable co-siting options are distributed across the Southwestern U.S., with the greatest concentration of siting options in the southern Great Plains, although siting with higher solar direct normal irradiance is possible in other states such as Arizona and New Mexico. Brackish water desalination is also attractive across the southwest U.S. due to high water stress, but for brackish water desalination reverse osmosis (an electricity driven process) is most cost- and energy-efficient, which does not require co-siting with the thermal generator. The most attractive state for nuclear and thermal desalination (which is more attractive when using seawater) is Texas, although other areas may become attractive as water stress increases over the coming decades. Co-siting of all CSP and thermal desalination is challenging as attractive CSP sites are not coastal.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Photovoltaic and Cost Analysis for Winston-Salem, North Carolina

This study assesses the feasibility of solar installations at various sites in Winston-Salem, focusing on factors such as solar resource availability, electricity costs, and rooftop area for photovoltaic systems. The analysis begins by estimating daily energy requirements based on annual electricity use, followed by adjusting for seasonal and operational fluctuations. Using regional solar data from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB), we calculate average peak sun hours to determine effective system sizing. A parametric approach using the System Advisor Model (SAM) refines this sizing process, incorporating a safety margin of 1.2 to address demand peaks. Each PV system is designed to fit available rooftop space, and a coverage threshold of 70% is identified as optimal for maximizing cost savings and sustainability. This threshold allows installations to meet substantial energy demands, supporting energy resilience and enhancing economic returns.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Validation of Photovoltaic Modeling Tool Solargraf Against Measured Data

Solargraf is a cloud-based 3D design tool by Enphase Energy that allows users to design solar and storage systems with a variety of elements. Through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), Enphase Energy collaborated with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to validate Solargraf's 3D design simulation against measured PV system performance. This study follows the same methodology of similar validation studies completed at NREL. The predicted performance results from simulations in both Solargraf and NREL's System Advisor Model (SAM) tool were compared with measured data to evaluate performance predictions.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Assessing Uncertainty in Solar Measurements: Key Findings From NLR's SUNI Application Across 89 Stations

The Solar Uncertainty Integrator (SUNI) study was developed by the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR's) to provide a standardized "bulk uncertainty processing" method for solar irradiance data, which are essential for the successful deployment of solar energy systems. This poster provides an overview of key findings from NLR's SUNI application across 89 stations.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Solar and Battery Storage Permitting and Siting Requirements - Solar Prize Round 7 (CRADA Final Report)

The purpose of this research project was to aggregate zoning and permitting data for utility-scale solar PV and battery energy storage systems. The ultimate goal of this collaboration is to lower solar and battery energy storage system soft costs by streamlining regulatory due diligence and reducing the burden of conducting feasibility assessments for solar and storage systems. The below sections describe the specific research completed by NLR (the contractor) in furtherance of the agreement with Vanox (the participant).

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Solar Radiation Research Laboratory (SRRL) Core Project Final Report: Fiscal Years 2022-2024

The Solar Radiation Research Laboratory (SRRL) at the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) is a world-leading solar calibration and measurement facility and maintains and disseminates the World Radiation Reference (essentially the W/m2) for the United States that is essential for traceable and accurate measurements of solar radiation at all solar generation facilities. SRRL operates two calibration facilities that meet International Standards Organization-17025 (ISO-17025) standards and provide unique high-quality calibrations to NREL and other U.S. Department of Energy laboratories. The Baseline Measurement System (BMS) at SRRL provides a high-quality record of solar irradiance and surface meteorological conditions. SRRL capabilities are used to develop (1) improved methods for the calibration of solar radiometers; (2) new standards through the ISO, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the American Standards for Testing of Materials (ASTM) International; (c) solar radiation and meteorological models; and (d) advanced instrumentation and methods for operating solar measurement stations. The SRRL datasets are also critical for the validation of new models and datasets, such as the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB). The research and development of solar radiation measurement systems and resource modeling techniques are essential for advancing the scientific basis for producing reliable resource data. Specifically, the spatial, temporal, and spectral (wavelength dependency) characteristics of the solar resource are required in several different time frames for various project phases.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Steel Creek, Pen Branch, and D-Area Watershed Stream Gauging Stations

A network of stream gauging systems were installed in the Steel Creek, Pen Branch, D-Area Discharge Canal, and the D006 Stream in support of the groundwater modeling efforts for the P-Area Groundwater Operable Unit (OU); Chemical, Metals, and Pesticides (CMP) Pits OU; and the D-Area Watershed, respectively. Each location is monitored by a MACE Floseries3 FloPro data logger and a MACE doppler ultrasonic area/velocity sensor. Each stream gauging system is powered by an internal 12-volt battery supplied by a solar panel with a trickle charger. Information collected by each data logger is logged internally and telecommunicated via a cellular network to an online server for real time analysis and monitoring. The MACE doppler ultrasonic area/velocity sensor can measure stream depth and velocities to give output values of flow rates, total flow, net flow, and volumes. The water depth is measured by a ceramic pressure transducer located on the top of the sensor. The velocity is measured by a continuous wave doppler sensor to give an average velocity across the whole stream profile. This report discusses the equipment and methods used to install continuous stream gauging stations and provides a summary of data collected through FY2025.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Enabling The Next Generation of Smart Sensors in Coal Fired Power Plants using Cellular 5G Technology

Ohio University (OHIO), West Virginia University (WVU), and American Electric Power (AEP) proposed to study and report on the benefits of 5G wireless cellular technologies for coal-fired power plants. The significant advantages, cost savings, and potential of 5G wireless data communications based sensors promised to usher in a new era of reliable, inexpensive, and powerful embedded systems that had not previously been available for coal-fired power plants. The team built upon existing experience with cellular-based systems, power plant water quality sensing, and high temperature sensors developed during past projects. Principal Investigator Wilhelm had been developing cellular-based sensor data systems with a commercial partner for 10 years, pioneering innovative solar-powered devices that began with 2G technology. The lessons and knowledge gained served as a foundation to demonstrate innovations and potential impacts specific to coal fired power plants enabled by 5G technology, along with integration with existing sensors and systems.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗