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Each quarter, NREL conducts the Quarterly Solar Industry Update, a presentation of technical trends within the solar industry. Each presentation focuses on global and U.S. supply and demand, module and system price, investment trends and business models, and updates on U.S. government programs supporting the solar industry.
Each quarter, the National Laboratory of the Rockies conducts the Quarterly Solar Industry Update, a presentation of technical trends within the solar industry. Each presentation focuses on global and U.S. supply and demand, module and system price, investment trends and business models, and updates on U.S. government programs supporting the solar industry.
Each quarter, the Nationa Laboratory of the Rockies conducts the Quarterly Solar Industry Update, a presentation of technical trends within the solar industry. Each presentation focuses on global and U.S. supply and demand, module and system price, investment trends and business models, and updates on U.S. government programs supporting the solar industry.
Customized, holistic energy modeling and analysis is conducted across a wide range of geospatial scales -- from global to local. We will describe the value and importance of local, place-based solutions, particularly, how scientific insights, decision support, and technical assistance based on integrated, customized modeling and analysis, and in-depth stakeholder engagement can assist communities in translating their ambitions into implementable action plans.
Each quarter, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducts the Quarterly Solar Industry Update, a presentation of technical trends within the solar industry, to the solar office staff. Each presentation focuses on global and U.S. supply and demand, module and system price, investment trends and business models, and updates on U.S. government programs supporting the solar industry.
Each quarter, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducts the Quarterly Solar Industry Update, a presentation of technical trends within the solar industry, to the solar office staff. Each presentation focuses on global and U.S. supply and demand, module and system price, investment trends and business models, and updates on U.S. government programs supporting the solar industry.
Each quarter, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducts the Quarterly Solar Industry Update, a presentation of technical trends within the solar industry, to the solar office staff. Each presentation focuses on global and U.S. supply and demand, module and system price, investment trends and business models, and updates on U.S. government programs supporting the solar industry.
As power systems evolve, becoming increasingly renewable, distributed, dynamic, and digital, managing them becomes ever more challenging and complex. System operators serve as the "air traffic controllers" for electricity grids, working to balance supply and demand, manage evolving electricity markets, and ensure the safety and reliability of electricity systems. To adapt to the rapidly changing energy landscape and support the transition to modern, zero carbon power systems, system operators must develop and adopt new technologies, approaches, and frameworks. The Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Consortium is a network of system operators, research institutions, and industry partners working to accelerate and scale the technical solutions required to transform our world's power systems. By developing and sharing robust models and tools, research and demonstration results, knowledge, and innovation, the G-PST Consortium is empowering system operators to transition to 100% renewable energy while ensuring the reliability, safety, and cost-effectiveness of grid operations.
Advanced Distribution Management Systems not generally optimize over the entire feeder because there are few high-fidelity distribution circuit models and real-time distribution-connected sensors are rare. The limited observability at the distribution level makes it difficult to globally optimize distribution operations and issue control setpoints to power systems equipment or Distributed Energy Resources (DER) to perform grid-support services. For example, setpoints can be issued to DER based on results from an optimization module that incorporates a static or time-series feeder simulation. Feeder simulation initial conditions are populated with photovoltaic (PV) and load forecasts, state estimation results, and/or digital twin measurements or state output. The real-time (RT) digital twin runs a model of the feeder to generate state estimation pseudo-measurements since there are limited live feeder measurements.
The project's primary objective is to develop a digital-twin based Photovoltaic (PV) Analysis and Response Support (PARS) platform, which aims to provide real-time situational awareness and optimal response plans. This platform is designed to enhance the performance of hybrid PV systems, making them competitive with or even superior to conventional generation resources. The PARS platform enabled the project team to develop and evaluate an extensive suite of grid support functionalities for the hybrid PV systems to enhance grid performance, across key areas including visibility, dispatchability, security, resilience, and reliability. Given the global push toward achieving 100% clean energy by 2035, there is a significant increase in the integration of inverter-based resources (IBRs) throughout the energy grid. Effectively managing the inherent variability and uncertainty associated with IBRs is crucial for ensuring cost-effectiveness, reliability, and security in both the main grid and islanded microgrids. Constrained to a limited array of IEEE test systems or standard feeder models, traditional IBR modeling struggles to assimilate new field data, accurately reflect system dynamics, and adapt to the evolving energy landscape. In our project, we embraced a Digital Twin (DT) strategy for crafting the PARS platform. A digital twin acts as a precise virtual counterpart of a physical system, built on historical data and continuously honed with real-time insights. This enables the high-fidelity DT to accurately mirror current system operations and forecast future scenarios. Consequently, the PARS platform becomes an ideal environment for testing and refining monitoring, control, power, and energy management algorithms designed to boost hybrid PV system performance. The defining feature of the PARS platform, distinguishing it from other advanced simulation tools, is its exceptional adaptability. This is achieved by employing actual network topologies and utilizing real-time field data for fine-tuning and calibration, ensuring a close emulation of real-world conditions. The project deliverables include: 1) High-fidelity IBR models and tools for real-time parameterization, utilizing real-time field measurements to refine IBR models for enhanced accuracy and performance; 2) Grid-forming and Grid-following capabilities to deliver resilience services, including blackstart, voltage and frequency support, cold-load pick-up, power reserves, and three-phase load balancing across grid-connected and microgrid settings; 3) Machine learning-based forecasting tools and methods for generating synthetic data and topologies, creating diverse and realistic simulation environments for evaluating varied operational scenarios; 4) Advanced microgrid power and energy management algorithms for optimizing the integration and operation of PV, storage, and demand response resources within both feeder and community scales. The power grid data sets are provided by four utility companies in North Carolina and the New York Power Administration. Acting as industry advisors, our industry partners communicated stakeholder needs and regulatory standards to the research teams, aiding technology transfer by incorporating the developed methodologies into their daily operations. This collaboration ensures that the PARS platform, functioning as a power system digital twin, enhances our understanding of IBR dynamic behaviors and enables the development and evaluation of IBR control functions that match or exceed the capabilities of conventional synchronous generators.
The mission of the NCSP is to provide sustainable expert leadership, direction and the technical infrastructure necessary to develop, maintain and disseminate the essential technical tools, training and data required to support safe, efficient fissionable material operations within the Department of Energy. The vision of the NCSP is to create a continually improving, adaptable and transparent program that communicates and collaborates globally to incorporate technology, practices and programs to be responsive to the essential technical needs of those responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining nuclear criticality safety.
The mission of the NCSP is to provide sustainable expert leadership, direction, and the technical infrastructure necessary to develop, maintain, and disseminate the essential technical tools, training, and data required to support safe, efficient fissionable material operations within the Department of Energy. The vision of the NCSP is a continually improving, adaptable, and transparent program that communicates and collaborates globally to incorporate technology, practices, and programs to be responsive to the essential technical needs of those responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining nuclear criticality safety.
This document is an overview and guide on the concept of precision time and how an alternative terrestrial timing solution to the Global Positioning System (GPS) can be implemented. What follows is a set of recommendations and best practices, derived from research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), across industry, and within the U.S. government, to implement a system of precision timing synchronization to support resilient operations for the U.S. grid. Precision time is a fundamental necessity for operating the grid today, and it becomes even more important as the grid modernizes with clean energy sources, microgrids, and precision sensors placed throughout the grid system to ensure failureresistant operations. The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), which includes (GPS), is currently the primary provider of precision timing today. A terrestrial-based system for time delivery and synchronization to augment GPS is outlined below and it would provide secure time, synchronized with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), in the event of outages or other interruptions associated with time delivery.
The LandScan Myriad World Baseline (MWB) method produces global, residential (nighttime/home-location) gridded geodemographic estimates based on 5-year age/gender cohorts—at 30-arcsecond (≈1 km) resolution. MWB is designed to fill gaps where detailed, georeferenced survey data (e.g., Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)) are missing or outdated, and to provide a baseline that can support human security analysis, including consequence assessment, “patterns of life” modeling, and scenario-based population futures. MWB’s workflow spatializes household-level age/gender characteristics from the GLOPOP-S dataset by conflating household and gridded expected relative wealth adapted from Global Gridded Relative Deprivation Index (GRDI), then adjusts them to a target year of interest. Age/gender estimates are then applied to harmonize lowest-administrative-level statistics with LandScan residential counts, yielding final geodemographic estimates. Two validation case studies are presented: Ghana (2021) and Tokyo/Kanagawa, Japan (2020), illustrating spatial variability in demographic cohorts and comparing MWB outputs to official gridded statistics. Results show close overall alignment relative to validation criteria including population pyramids and age-dependency ratios.
Human-induced climate change impacts the hydrological cycle and thus the availability of water resources. However, previous assessments of observed warming-induced changes in dryness have not excluded natural climate variability and show conflicting results due to uncertainties in our understanding of the response of evapotranspiration. Here in this paper, we employ data-driven and land-surface models to produce observation-based global reconstructions of water availability from 1902 to 2014, a period during which our planet experienced a global warming of approximately 1°C. Our analysis reveals a spatial pattern of changes in average water availability during the driest month of the year over the past three decades compared with the first half of the twentieth century, with some regions experiencing increased and some decreased water availability. The global pattern is consistent with climate model estimates that account for anthropogenic effects, and it is not expected from natural climate variability, supporting human-induced climate change as the cause. There is regional evidence of drier dry seasons predominantly in extratropical latitudes and including Europe, western North America, northern Asia, southern South America, Australia and eastern Africa. We also find that the intensification of the dry season is generally a consequence of increasing evapotranspiration rather than decreasing precipitation.
In 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy / National Nuclear Security Administration’s (DOE/NNSA) Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) Program initiated a new nuclear forensics outreach effort under its Confidence Building Measures Program. Little did they know that the timing could not have been better. This article focuses on the early years (2009-2015) of the NNSA’s international nuclear forensics outreach, specifically the efforts and experiences of the women who helped establish this program, building it from a fledgling bilateral effort into an enduring technical capacity provider engaging with dozens of countries and multilateral organizations. At the onset of the program, nuclear forensics was an emerging priority within the U.S. Government and receiving increased focus from international organizations through high-level diplomatic efforts such as the Nuclear Security Summit and Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. Additionally, working-level initiatives were gaining traction through the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Forensics International Technical Working Group. Over the next six years, a small team comprised of a uniquely large number of women NNSA federal, contract, and national laboratory staff served as key leaders engaging with the international community to strengthen global technical nuclear forensics capacity and best practices. The program continues today under the Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence Program as Investigation Support. The experiences shared here detail a unique time period when the new technical discipline of nuclear forensics was beginning to mature and gain international traction. The authors have made every effort to remember history correctly and be as inclusive as possible. A wealth of training, guidance, and exercises documentation was developed in the 2009-2015 timeframe, much of which still serves as the foundation for today’s even more extensive program and community of dedicated technical and diplomatic practitioners.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) "Modeling Host Responses to Understand Severe Human Virus Infections" program project was a highly integrated and comprehensive systems biology research core, funded by the National Institute of Health (U19AI106772) from 2013-06-01 to 2018-05-31, investigating the complex host response to category A, B, and C priority pathogen infections. Resulting project deliverables include an extensive comprehensive collections of linked primary and secondary transformation viral experimental infection data. Here we provide a never before released comprehensive infectious disease collection of primary and secondary transformation multi-Omics data profiling a series of priority pathogen primary experimental studies for enhanced open access to viral Omics lifecycle datasets and project metadata. Using a highly integrated and multidisciplinary approach, linked primary data and metadata supporting secondary normalization datasets, provide critical information necessary for research reproducibility and long-term preservation. Enabling on-demand data access for research community consumption and developer reuse, serves to support new mechanistic insights and discoveries into host-pathogen interactions for aiding future biohazard data preparedness efforts in emergency response to global health crises involving viral infection.
In 2009, the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Program initiated a new nuclear forensics outreach effort under its Confidence Building Measures Program. Little did they know that the timing could not have been better. This article focuses on the early years (2009–2015) of the NNSA’s international nuclear forensics outreach, specifically the efforts and experiences of the women who helped establish this program, building it from a fledgling, bilateral effort into an enduring technical capacity provider engaging with dozens of countries and multilateral organizations. At the onset of the program, nuclear forensics was an emerging priority within the US Government and receiving increased focus from international organizations through high-level diplomatic efforts such as the Nuclear Security Summit and Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism. Additionally, working-level initiatives were gaining traction through the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Forensics International Technical Working Group. Over the next 6 years, a small team comprising a uniquely large number of women NNSA federal, contract, and national laboratory staff served as key leaders engaging with the international community to strengthen global technical nuclear forensics capacity and best practices. The program continues today under the Nuclear Smuggling Detection and Deterrence Program as Investigation Support. The experiences shared here detail a unique time period when the new technical discipline of nuclear forensics was beginning to mature and gain international traction. The authors have made every effort to remember history correctly and be as inclusive as possible. A wealth of training, guidance, and exercise documentation was developed in the 2009–2015 time frame, much of which still serves as the foundation for today’s even more extensive program and community of dedicated technical and diplomatic practitioners.