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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 361 records · Page 20
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

A Conceptual Framework to Describe Energy Efficiency and Demand Response Interactions

Energy efficiency (EE) and demand response (DR) resources provide important utility systems and ratepayer benefits. At the same time, the rapid change in the amount and type of variable renewable energy, like solar and wind, is reshaping the role and economic value of EE and DR, and will likely affect the time-dependent valuation of EE and DR measures. Utilities are increasingly interested in integrating EE and DR measures as a strategic approach to improve their collective cost-effectiveness and performance. We develop a framework to identify the EE and DR attributes, system conditions, and technological factors that are likely to drive interactions between EE and DR. We apply the framework to example measures with different technology specifics in the context of different utility system conditions. We find that EE and DR interactions are likely driven by changes in discretionary load, the addition of controls or other capabilities to shift loads, and the coincidence of savings with system peak or load building periods. Our analysis suggests increasing complexity in evaluating EE and DR interactions when moving from standalone equipment to integrated systems. The framework can be applied to research on integrated building systems by grouping measures into portfolios with different likely implications for EE and DR interactions.

Satchwell, Andrew J. (ORCID:0000000244053599)↗
DOE OSTI2019

Workshop on the Nexus of Resilience and Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Proceedings Report

There is an array of building technologies whose operation–either passively or actively–holds the potential to improve resilience for building occupants and owners, utilities, communities, and other financial interests. Recent decades have witnessed enhanced resilience to major disruptions, as well as significant improvements in the energy efficiency of building technologies. However, these dual goals have often been pursued independently of each other. Similar levels of energy efficiency can be realized by a range of different technologies. For example, buildings can be kept cool in summer through passive ventilation, more efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), higher quality walls and windows, advanced control systems, and intelligent analytics enabled by IoT technology. However, each of these technologies realizes energy efficiency through a different mechanism, and those mechanisms may contribute to resilience in non-uniform ways. One purpose of this workshop was the identification of specific energy efficiency and load flexibility characteristics, followed by an assessment of how those characteristics map onto the resilience space. In June 2019, Oak Ridge National Laboratory hosted a two-day workshop to explore how and where the two areas overlap, complement, or interfere with each other. A diverse group of experts assembled to discuss how to mutually address goals for improving the efficiency and resilience of our nation’s buildings. While this workshop only considered energy efficiency and load flexibility technologies that were realized through behind-the-meter technologies, all forms of resilience were considered. That is, the impact of these technologies on building occupants, building owners, business operators, utilities, communities, and all other relevant stakeholders were within scope.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2024

Driving Uptake for Energy Efficiency Financing Programs: Marketing and Outreach, Partnership Networks, and Program Design Considerations

Many energy efficiency financing programs could achieve greater uptake and impact by more effectively recruiting participants. This report examines some of the primary factors that have contributed to high participant uptake among successful financing programs. We review best practices in partnerships (Chapter 2), direct marketing (Chapter 3), and program design (Chapter 4) that facilitate robust participation. This report is primarily designed for state and local governments that have established energy efficiency financing programs or are considering doing so and are seeking insight into how they can ramp up program participation. In disseminating lessons learned from well-established programs that have experienced success in their target markets, the objective is to help scale up the large number of energy efficiency financing programs that seek to replicate these successes. This report can inform states, local governments, and other entities that will establish or expand clean energy financing programs with funding made available under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Energy-Efficient Maneuvering of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) with Situational Awareness at Intersections (Final Progress Report)

The increased development of Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) systems, currently used for safety and driver convenience, presents new opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of vehicles. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) achieved a 20% energy consumption reduction in a 2017 Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid by using connectivity (V2V, V2I, V2X) as part of the Next Generation Energy Technologies for Connected and Automated on-Road Vehicles (NEXTCAR) program. The energy consumption gains were achieved by a combination of vehicle dynamics and powertrain control algorithms with a focus on SAE L1 and L2 automated vehicles where a human is still responsible for safe operation. SwRI is now involved in NEXTCAR-II, focusing on energy-efficient control tech for SAE Level 4/5 automated vehicles, aiming for a 30% energy reduction compared to stock hybrids. The rise of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is driving investments in L4 and L5 automated vehicles. A study by the University of Michigan shows these vehicles might increase energy use and emissions by 3-20%. Technology similar to NEXTCAR can enhance energy efficiency in highly automated vehicles, leveraging improved sensing and actuation capabilities. While the NEXTCAR programs targeted energy efficiency improvements for a single vehicle, this program adopts a more expansive approach. It places its focus on understanding and testing the cumulative effects within a region or corridor, aiming to assess how a subset of vehicles equipped with NEXTCAR-style technologies influence the overall energy consumption of all vehicles traveling within that area. Additionally, the program explores infrastructure-based mobility solutions to optimize efficiency, and seeks to understand and quantify public perception and likelihood of technology adoption.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2017

A Case Study in Market Transformation for Residential Energy Efficiency Programs

This case study describes how the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (MEEA) partnered with gas and electric utilities in Iowa to establish the Iowa residential heating, ventilation, and air conditioning System Adjustment and Verified Efficiency (HVAC SAVE) program, taking it to scale improving the performance and energy efficiency of HVAC systems, growing businesses, and gaining consumer trust.

Federal efficiency standards, installation practic↗
DOE OSTI2020

Boosting energy efficiency of Li-rich layered oxide cathodes by tuning oxygen redox kinetics and reversibility

In developing electrode materials for next-generation Li-ion batteries, significant efforts have been given to the energy, power density and cycling stability, with much less (if any) attention paid to the energy efficiency – arguably, the most important practical measure for large-scale applications. This is particularly true for the oxygen-redox active electrodes, such as Li 1.2 Ni 0.13 Co 0.13 Mn 0.54 O 2 , the notorious energy-inefficient cathode that has an extremely high capacity but comes with large voltage hysteresis and voltage decay. Herein, we report the rational design of an energy-efficient Li-rich layered cathode along with high energy, power density and cycling stability enabled by tuning oxygen redox activity. Specifically, the target material Li 1.12 Ni 0.22 Co 0.13 Mn 0.52 O 2 exhibits an ultrahigh energy efficiency at 1 C (90.6%), high capacity (> 200 mAh g -1 ) with 98.9% retention and less than 150 mV decay at the extended 200 cycles. Overall, through direct comparison between the material and Li 1.2 Ni 0.13 Co 0.13 Mn 0.54 O 2 , we show that the compositional change, although slightly, greatly improves the oxygen redox kinetics and reversibility, thereby boosts energy efficiency. The findings offer a strategy to narrow the gap between scientific interest and practical application of oxygen-redox chemistry.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Brochure on the 2024 ASCR Workshop on Energy-Efficient Computing for Science

Large-scale computing has enabled numerous scientific discoveries, including ground-breaking achievements facilitated by the US Department of Energy (DOE) supercomputers and advances in applied mathematics and computer science. While important advances were made in energy efficiency to enable exascale computing, continued efforts are needed to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of the next generation of high-performance computing (HPC) systems and, more broadly, AI data centers. Without substantial improvements in energy efficiency, the energy consumption associated with computing could become a limiting factor for future scientific discovery, national security, and technological advancement.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2016

Enabling Energy Efficiency in South Africa's Commercial Buildings

South Africa is leading a number of efforts to support a thriving economy while also reducing energy use. Increasing energy demand coupled with a highly energy intensive economy and energy inefficient industries provide the backdrop for strong government action underway in South Africa. This brochure details how the Clean Energy Solutions Center supported development of the Regulations on Allowance for the Energy Efficiency Savings legislation designed to provide a framework for effective energy efficiency regulation, incentives and energy reduction targets for South Africa's commercial buildings sector.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Overcoming Codes and Standards Barriers to Innovations in Building Energy Efficiency

In this journal article, the authors discuss approaches to overcoming building code barriers to energy-efficiency innovations in home construction. Building codes have been a highly motivational force for increasing the energy efficiency of new homes in the United States in recent years. But as quickly as the codes seem to be changing, new products are coming to the market at an even more rapid pace, sometimes offering approaches and construction techniques unthought of when the current code was first proposed, which might have been several years before its adoption by various jurisdictions. Due to this delay, the codes themselves can become barriers to innovations that might otherwise be helping to further increase the efficiency, comfort, health or durability of new homes. . The U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America, a program dedicated to improving the energy efficiency of America’s housing stock through research and education, is working with the U.S. housing industry through its research teams to help builders identify and remove code barriers to innovation in the home construction industry. The article addresses several approaches that builders use to achieve approval for innovative building techniques when code barriers appear to exist.

Building America↗
DOE OSTI2020

Retrofit-ability: A supplementary metric to inform energy efficiency policies and programs

Building Energy Use Intensity (EUI) has been commonly used to facilitate policy makers and utilities to design energy efficacy programs and help building managers prioritize investment in building upgrades. Buildings with higher EUIs are usually chosen as better candidates for retrofit. Our study of nearly one hundred buildings in Seattle’s Building Tune Up Accelerator program and thousands of buildings in the Asset Score database reveals that EUI (after weather/location/use type normalization) alone is not the best indicator of a building’s potential to save energy, especially for those buildings in the mid-range (30-70 percentile EUI). In this paper, we introduce the concept of “retrofit-ability” — a building’s real potential to reduce its energy use cost-effectively — as a supplementary metric to inform energy efficiency policy and investment. Currently, such potential analyses are predicted for a building stock using prototypical building models or statistical data. However, typical buildings or general historical data may not sufficiently represent building configurations in a portfolio and predict their saving potentials. We utilized machine learning to investigate how key building characteristics (such as envelope attributes, HVAC type, location, use type, etc.) affect a building’s improvement potentials and developed a low-cost method to quantify such potentials for a portfolio of buildings. The supplementary perspective provided by “retrofit-ability” highlights which building assets correlate most with a building’s energy savings potential across region, building use type and more.

Wang, Na↗
DOE OSTI2024

Managing changes in peak demand from building and transportation electrification with energy efficiency [Slides]

The Department of Energy funded Berkeley Lab to provide technical assistance to two municipal utilities on how energy efficiency and demand flexibility can mitigate the peak demand impacts of building and transportation electrification. Berkeley Lab worked with these utilities, Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and Fort Collins Utilities, to identify research questions that supported their planning needs. For both utilities, Berkeley Lab developed scenario-based load forecasts that considered baseline and high-efficiency building electrification. For SMUD, the forecast also explored the sensitivity of peak demand to extreme weather (a winter cold snap) at the system-level. For Fort Collins Utilities, the forecast addressed the impacts of low, medium, and high levels of building and transportation technology adoption on select distribution feeders. Berkeley Lab is also developing a guidance document for utilities that will draw on lessons learned from the technical assistance and provide a framework for conducting similar analyses.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2014

Reducing Transaction Costs for Energy Efficiency Investments and Analysis of Economic Risk Associated With Building Performance Uncertainties: Small Buildings and Small Portfolios Program

The small buildings and small portfolios (SBSP) sector face a number of barriers that inhibit SBSP owners from adopting energy efficiency solutions. This pilot project focused on overcoming two of the largest barriers to financing energy efficiency in small buildings: disproportionately high transaction costs and unknown or unacceptable risk. Solutions to these barriers can often be at odds, because inexpensive turnkey solutions are often not sufficiently tailored to the unique circumstances of each building, reducing confidence that the expected energy savings will be achieved. To address these barriers, NREL worked with two innovative, forward-thinking lead partners, Michigan Saves and Energi, to develop technical solutions that provide a quick and easy process to encourage energy efficiency investments while managing risk. The pilot project was broken into two stages: the first stage focused on reducing transaction costs, and the second stage focused on reducing performance risk. In the first stage, NREL worked with the non-profit organization, Michigan Saves, to analyze the effects of 8 energy efficiency measures (EEMs) on 81 different baseline small office building models in Holland, Michigan (climate zone 5A). The results of this analysis (totaling over 30,000 cases) are summarized in a simple spreadsheet tool that enables users to easily sort through the results and find appropriate small office EEM packages that meet a particular energy savings threshold and are likely to be cost-effective.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Louisville Communities LEAP Engagement: Improving Energy Efficiency in Affordable Housing [Slides]

This presentation outlines the initial results from a year-plus engagement between the National Renewable Energy Lab and Louisville, Kentucky through the U.S. Department of Energy's Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program) effort. Louisville, as represented by the Louisville Metro Government, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and the Metropolitan Housing Coalition, sought technical assistance from the labs to address energy usage in its residential housing stock as part of efforts to reduce community-wide emissions and high energy burdens throughout its community. The Communities LEAP scope of work included an energy efficiency analysis that leveraged ResStock data to identify key efficient technologies to explore for retrofitting Louisville's housing stock; technical support around developing a community benchmarking ordinance to help Louisville track its progress towards reducing energy usage; a workforce development overview to help Louisville ensure a sufficient and equitable distribution of clean-energy-related jobs supported by its energy efficiency efforts; a policy analysis component to track energy efficiency related policies Louisville may be interested in adapting from peer communities across the country; and a financing analysis component to identify opportunities to lower the barrier to clean energy adoption.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Utilizing Commercial Real Estate Owner and Investor Data to Analyze the Financial Performance of Energy Efficient, High-Performance Office Buildings

Evidence has shown that owning and operating energy-efficient, high-performance, “green” properties results in multiple benefits including lower utility bills, higher rents, improved occupancy, and greater net operating income. However, it is difficult to isolate and control moderating factors to identify the specific drivers behind improved financial performance and value to investors that results from sustainability in real estate. DOE is interested in facilitating deeper investigation of the correlation between energy efficiency and financial performance, reducing data acquisition and matching challenges, and developing a stronger understanding of how sustainable design and energy efficiency impact value. DOE commissioned this pilot study to test the logistical and empirical procedures required to establish a Commercial Real Estate Data Aggregation & Trends Analysis lab, determine the potential benefits available through the lab, and contribute to the existing body of evidence in this field.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS1984

Measurement and prediction of Energy Efficient Engine noise

The NASA/GE Energy Efficient Engine (E3) static noise levels were measured in an acoustic arena on the Integrated Core and Low Spool Test System. These measured levels were scaled to the appropriate size to power four study aircraft and were projected to flight for evaluation of noise levels relative to FAR36, Stage III limits. As a result of these evaluations, it is predicted that the NASA/GE E3 engine with a wide spacing cut-on blade/vane ratio fan and a forced mixer nozzle can meet FAR36 Stage III limits with sufficient design margin.

Lavin, S. P.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Predicting the Impact of Utility Lighting Rebate Programs on Promoting Industrial Energy Efficiency: A Machine Learning Approach

Implementation costs are a major factor in manufacturers’ decisions to invest in energy-efficient technologies. Emerging technologies in lighting systems, however, typically require small investment costs and offer short, simple payback periods, due, in part, to federal, state, and utility incentive programs. Recently, however, certain state and federal mandates have reduced the support for and efficacy of electricity utility incentivizing programs. To determine the impact of such support programs, this study examined historical data regarding lighting retrofit savings, implementation costs, and utility rebates gathered from 13 years of industrial energy audits by a U.S. Department of Energy Industrial Assessment Center in a midwestern state. It uses a machine learning approach to evaluate the industrial energy and cost-saving opportunities that may have been lost due to decisions attributable to legislative mandates, utility policies, and manufacturers’ calculations and to evaluate the potential effect of lighting rebates on manufacturers’ decisions to implement industrial energy-efficient lighting retrofits. The results indicate that the decision not to implement lighting energy efficiency recommendations resulted in a loss of more than USD800,000 in potential rebates by industries during the study period and that the implementation of lighting energy assessment recommendations could have increased by about 50% if electric utility rebates had been available. These findings can help industries evaluate the benefits of implementing lighting efficiency improvements, and help utilities determine feasible lighting retrofit rebate values for incentivizing such changes by the industries they serve.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2017

Chapter 13: Assessing Persistence and Other Evaluation Issues Cross-Cutting Protocol. The Uniform Methods Project: Methods for Determining Energy Efficiency Savings for Specific Measures

Addressing other evaluation issues that have been raised in the context of energy efficiency programs, this chapter focuses on methods used to address the persistence of energy savings, which is an important input to the benefit/cost analysis of energy efficiency programs and portfolios. In addition to discussing 'persistence' (which refers to the stream of benefits over time from an energy efficiency measure or program), this chapter provides a summary treatment of these issues -Synergies across programs -Rebound -Dual baselines -Errors in variables (the measurement and/or accuracy of input variables to the evaluation).

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2017

Energy Efficiency Financing for Low- and Moderate-Income Households: Current State of the Market, Issues, and Opportunities

Ensuring that low- and moderate-income (LMI) households have access to energy efficiency is equitable, provides energy savings as a resource to meet energy needs, and can support multiple policy goals, such as affordable energy, job creation, and improved public health. Although the need is great, many LMI households may not be able to afford efficiency improvements or may be inhibited from adopting efficiency for other reasons. Decision-makers across the country are currently exploring the challenges and potential solutions to ramping up adoption of efficiency in LMI households, including the use of financing. The report’s objective is to offer state and local policymakers, state utility regulators, program administrators, financial institutions, consumer advocates and other LMI stakeholders with an understanding of: -The relationship between LMI communities and financing for energy efficiency, including important considerations for its use such as consumer protections -The larger programmatic context of grant-based assistance and other related resources supporting LMI household energy efficiency -Lessons learned from existing energy efficiency financing programs serving LMI households -Financing products used by these programs and their relative advantages and disadvantages in addressing barriers to financing or to energy efficiency uptake for LMI households

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗