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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 487 records · Page 27
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
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↗
DOE OSTI2024

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands: 2023 Energy Baseline Report

This report summarizes the currently available energy sector data for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands as of December 2023. It describes primary energy consumption, end uses, energy production, relevant policies, and key challenges, including details on the electric power and transportation sectors. The report serves as a baseline of understanding to assess CNMI's island-wide energy needs and priorities.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

The Foundational Industrial Energy Dataset (FIED): Open-Source Data on Industrial Facilities

The state of data on industrial energy use has co-evolved over several decades with the demands of industrial energy analysis. The most recent development - analysis in support of decarbonizing the industrial sector - has changed the characteristics of industrial data that are useful for analysts and model developers. Although data and its collection processes may be cast from a conventional viewpoint as objective and free from the influence of social dynamics, this provides an incomplete picture of not only the processes by which information is generated, but also the limitations and opportunities of data to be useful for analysis. The foundational industry energy data set (FIED) is a result of the confluence of trends in open data and the demand for higher resolution industrial energy analysis. The general approach to compiling the FIED involves accessing, filtering, and formatting data published by federal organizations on the Internet for public use. Unlike most industrial energy datasets, which are published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the FIED relies on core datasets from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The FIED addresses several of the areas of growing disconnect between the demands of industrial energy analysis and the state of industrial energy data by providing unit-level characterization - including estimates of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and design capacities - for facilities that are identified by latitude and longitude. This enables local-level analysis of existing combustion equipment, as well as regional comparisons with traditional industrial energy data estimates. The report summarizes the general logic behind compiling the FIED. The FIED itself and its Python code are available from OpenEI and GitHub, respectively.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Best Practices for Renewable Energy Installations in the National Parks

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and National Park Service (NPS) have partnered to support the development and utilization of renewable energy technology at federal facilities and on federal lands. FEMP provides technical support to NPS on renewable energy projects to identify and generate significant cost savings and efficiency benefits, investigate opportunities to reduce carbon footprint and/or achieve carbon neutrality, and improve resilience to NPS-owned facilities and sites. The purpose of this report is to support NPS staff as they evaluate whether and how to use renewable energy technologies in park operations.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2025

Análisis de Tareas del Inspector de Control de Calidad [Quality Control Inspector Job Task Analysis (Spanish Translation)]

El Laboratorio Nacional de Energía Renovable (NREL) ha sido contratado por el Programa de Asistencia para la Climatización (WAP) del Departamento de Energía de EE.UU. (DOE) para desarrollar y mantener los recursos en el marco del proyecto de Directrices para Profesionales de la Energía Doméstica (GHEP). El objetivo del proyecto GHEP es aumentar la calidad del trabajo realizado para la remodelación energética residencial en Estados Unidos a través de WAP y otros programas de remodelación residencial. Para cumplir el objetivo de “Establecer certificaciones nacionales de la mano de obra y normas de formación”, el DOE encargó al NREL el desarrollo de recursos GHEP, incluido un conjunto de certificaciones avanzadas, basadas en aptitud, para el personal de los profesionales de la energía doméstica (HEP). Desde 2010, el NREL ha reclutado voluntarios expertos en la materia de WAP y de la industria del mantenimiento del hogar para que formen parte de comités que desarrollen y actualicen programas de certificación y sus análisis de tareas (JTA) necesarios como base de programas de certificación y formación estandarizados. Las certificaciones HEP apoyan al WAP y al sector del mantenimiento de viviendas residenciales en general mediante el proceso de acreditación y el desarrollo de JTA definidos para auditores energéticos (EA) e inspectores de control de calidad (QCI). Este informe es un resumen de las actualizaciones más recientes (2022) del JTA del QCI. [The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is contracted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) to develop and maintain the resources under the Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals (GHEP) project. The purpose of the GHEP project is to increase the quality of work conducted for residential energy retrofits in the United States through the WAP network and other residential retrofit programs. This is the Spanish translation of NREL/TP-7A40-85789.]

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

NREL Capabilities for TMCES

This is a panel presentation covering NREL's capabilities in the thermal-mechanical energy storage space, including ARIES, component R&D, and modeling tools and datasets.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2026

ETIPP Success Stories [Slides]

This is a presentation to ETIPP project partners at a regional meeting in Rockland, Maine focusing on ETIPP success stories.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

TCF Base Commercialization Enabling Final Report: Lab Making Advanced Technology Commercialization Harmonized (MATCH) Prize

The Lab MATCH prize, funded by the Office of Technology Commercialization through the Technology Commercialization Fund, was designed to accelerate the commercialization of national laboratory intellectual property (IP) by incentivizing for-profit companies and startups to license lab IP aiming to enable more affordable, available, reliable and secure energy solutions. The Lab MATCH prize program offers both technical and commercial benefits, aligning with the Department of Energy's (DOE) mission to advance energy solutions through innovation, commercialization, and market-ready deployment. In summary, the Lab MATCH Prize promotes DOE's objectives by marrying technical innovation with commercialization expertise, resulting in scalable, market-ready solutions that strengthen the U.S. economy, advance energy technologies, and reaffirm U.S. leadership in energy innovation.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Power Split Supercharging: A Mild Hybrid Approach to Boost Fuel Economy

This work investigates an innovative low-voltage (<60 V) hybrid device that enables engine boosting and downsizing in addition to mild hybrid functionalities such as regenerative braking, start-stop, and torque assist. A planetary gear set and a brake permit the power split supercharger (PSS) to share a 9 kW motor between supercharging the engine and direct torque supply to the crankshaft. In contrast, most e-boosting schemes use two separate motors for these two functionalities. This single motor structure restricts the PSS operation to only one of the supercharging or parallel hybrid modes; therefore, an optimized decision making strategy is necessary to select both the device mode and its power split ratio. An adaptive equivalent consumption minimization strategy (A-ECMS), which uses the battery state of charge (SoC) history to adjust the equivalence factor, is developed for energy management of the PSS. The A-ECMS effectiveness is compared against a dynamic programming (DP) solution with full drive cycle preview through hardware-in-the-loop experiments on an engine dynamometer testbed. The experiments show that the PSS with A-ECMS reduces vehicle fuel consumption by 18.4% over standard FTP75 cycle, compared to a baseline turbocharged engine, while global optimal DP solution decreases the fuel consumption by 22.8% compared to the baseline.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Time Series Sustainability Assessment of a Partial Energy Portfolio Transition

Energy portfolios are overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuel resources that perpetuate the consequences associated with climate change. Therefore, it is imperative to transition to more renewable alternatives to limit further harm to the environment. This study presents a univariate time series prediction model that evaluates sustainability outcomes of partial energy transitions. Future electricity generation at the state-level is predicted using exponential smoothing and autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA). The best prediction results are then used as an input for a sustainability assessment of a proposed transition by calculating carbon, water, land, and cost footprints. Missouri, USA was selected as a model testbed due to its dependence on coal. Of the time series methods, ARIMA exhibited the best performance and was used to predict annual electricity generation over a 10-year period. The proposed transition consisted of a one-percent annual decrease of coal’s portfolio share to be replaced with an equal share of solar and wind supply. The sustainability outcomes of the transition demonstrate decreases in carbon and water footprints but increases in land and cost footprints. Decision makers can use the results presented here to better inform strategic provisioning of critical resources in the context of proposed energy transitions.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Elaboration of Energy Balance: A Model for the Brazilian States

The energy balance constitutes a powerful management instrument for government agencies, as it offers an overview of the energy situation of the country (or region) and serves as a guide for energy policies and monitoring of these policies. Although Brazil has published the national energy balance for more than half a century, the national publication does not adequately address energy statistics at the level of the states. This occurs either due to the lack of specific data or the absence of total disaggregation. Accordingly, the elaboration and implementation of public policies for the energy sector in the Brazilian states lack consistent energy statistics. Therefore, this paper aims to present a model for the Brazilian states to elaborate the energy balance. The proposed model consists of applying internationally referenced methodologies to develop a user-friendly software, which includes automatic energy unit conversions, different chart styles, high-level data organization, and Sankey diagrams. As a result, the software can be adopted by local governments as a tool to maintain the state energy balance publication periodically, and hence obtain the detailed information necessary to manage and formulate energy policies. The advantage of the software is that it can be operated by non-experts and the energy flow as well as the entire report can be generated automatically. The proposed software was successfully used to generate the energy balance of the Mato Grosso do Sul state.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Modeling Systems’ Disruption and Social Acceptance—A Proof-of-Concept Leveraging Reinforcement Learning

As the need for a just and equitable energy transition accelerates, disruptive clean energy technologies are becoming more visible to the public. Clean energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaics and wind power, can substantially contribute to a more sustainable world and have been around for decades. However, the fast pace at which they are projected to be deployed in the United States (US) and the world poses numerous technical and nontechnical challenges, such as in terms of their integration into the electricity grid, public opposition and competition for land use. For instance, as more land-based wind turbines are built across the US, contention risks may become more acute. This article presents a methodology based on reinforcement learning (RL) that minimizes contention risks and maximizes renewable energy production during siting decisions. As a proof-of-concept, the methodology is tested on a case study of wind turbine siting in Illinois during the 2022–2035 period. Results show that using RL halves potential delays due to contention compared to a random decision process. This approach could be further developed to study the acceptance of offshore wind projects or other clean energy technologies.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Energy 101: Solar [Slides]

The Energy 101: Solar presentation, developed for the Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project (ETIPP), provides an overview of solar energy. It covers fundamental concepts, designs, solar for different scales and use cases, and additional resources.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

A Comprehensive Approach to Measure the Efficiency of Freight Transport: Freight Mobility Energy Productivity (F-MEP) Metric

Freight travel accounts for a major share of the energy consumed in the transportation sector in any country, and the United States is no exception. Understanding and modeling freight movement is critical, particularly in the context of capturing the impact of emerging technologies on freight travel and its externalities. The domain of freight modeling and forecasting is gaining pace in the recent years, but advancement in comprehensive freight performance metrics is still lagging. Conventional freight performance metrics such as truck-miles, ton-miles, or value-miles are unidimensional and aggregated in nature, making them unsuitable to accurately capture the impact of emerging transportation trends on the performance of freight systems. Addressing this research need, this paper presents the 'Freight Mobility Energy Productivity' metric to quantify freight performance of current as well as future freight systems, accounting for various costs associated with freight transport. The proposed metric was implemented using data from the Freight Analysis Framework along with other published sources, which shows intuitive results in quantifying freight performance. Further, a scenario analysis exercise was conducted to test the capability of the metric in tracking improvements in system-level freight efficiency as a result of vehicle powertrain technology improvement. Results of the scenario analysis reinforce confidence that the proposed metric can be used as a decision support tool in assessing the efficiency of existing as well as future freight trends and technologies.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Moving the Mission Forward with Renewable Energy

Presentation gives an overview of proven examples of renewable energy technologies. Learn how to properly utilize renewable energy technologies; research, select, fund, and deploy renewable technologies; best operate and maintain the federal government’s fleet of on-site solar photovoltaic (PV) systems; and learn best practices to detect and address performance issues with a PV system.

distributed energy↗