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DOE OSTI2013

Geothermal Power Generation Plant

Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) drilled a deep geothermal well on campus (to 5,300 feet deep) which produced 196°F resource as part of the 2008 OIT Congressionally Directed Project. OIT will construct a geothermal power plant (estimated at 1.75 MWe gross output). The plant would provide 50 to 75 percent of the electricity demand on campus. Technical support for construction and operations will be provided by OIT’s Geo-Heat Center. The power plant will be housed adjacent to the existing heat exchange building on the south east corner of campus near the existing geothermal production wells used for heating campus. Cooling water will be supplied from the nearby cold water wells to a cooling tower or air cooling may be used, depending upon the type of plant selected. Using the flow obtained from the deep well, not only can energy be generated from the power plant, but the “waste” water will also be used to supplement space heating on campus. A pipeline will be construction from the well to the heat exchanger building, and then a discharge line will be construction around the east and north side of campus for anticipated use of the “waste” water by facilities in an adjacent sustainable energy park. An injection well will need to be drilled to handle the flow, as the campus existing injection wells are limited in capacity.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2014

Technical Analysis of Installed Micro-Combined Heat and Power Fuel-Cell System

Combined heat and power fuel cell systems (CHP-FCSs) provide consistent electrical power and hot water with greater efficiency and lower emissions than alternative sources. These systems can be used either as baseload, grid-connected, or as off-the-grid power sources. This report presents a technical analysis of 5 kWe CHP-FCSs installed in different locations in the U.S. At some sites as many as five 5 kWe system is used to provide up to 25kWe of power. Systems in this power range are considered “micro”-CHP-FCS. To better assess performance of micro-CHP-FCS and understand their benefits, the U.S. Department of Energy worked with ClearEdge Power to install fifteen 5-kWe PBI high temperature PEM fuel cells (CE5 models) in the commercial markets of California and Oregon. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory evaluated these systems in terms of their economics, operations, and technical performance. These units were monitored from September 2011 until June 2013. During this time, about 190,000 hours of data were collected and more than 17 billion data points were analyzed. Beginning in July 2013, ten of these systems were gradually replaced with ungraded systems (M5 models) containing phosphoric acid fuel cell technology. The new units were monitored until June 2014 until they went offline because ClearEdge was bought by Doosan at the time and the new manufacturer did not continue to support data collection and maintenance of these units. During these two phases, data was collected at once per second and data analysis techniques were applied to understand behavior of these systems. The results of this analysis indicate that systems installed in the second phase of this demonstration performed much better in terms of availability, consistency in generation, and reliability. The average net electrical power output increased from 4.1 to 4.9 kWe, net heat recovery from 4.7 to 5.4 kWth, and system availability improved from 94% to 95%. The average net system electric efficiency, average net heat recovery efficiency, and overall net efficiency of the system increased respectively from 33% to 36%, from 38% to 41%, and from 71% to 76%. The temperature of water sent to sit however reduced by about 16% from 51⁰C to 43 ⁰C. This was a control strategy and the temperature can be controlled depending on building heat demands. More importantly, the number of shutdowns and maintenance events required to keep the systems running at the manufacturer’s rated performance specifications were substantially reduced by about 76% (for 8 to 10 units running over a one-year period). From July 2012 to June 2013, there were eight CE5 units in operation and a total of 134 scheduled and unscheduled shutdowns took place. From July 2013 to June 2014, between two to ten units were in operation and only 32 shutdowns were reported (all unscheduled). In summary, the number of shutdowns reduced from 10 shutdowns per month on average for eight CE5units to an average of 2.7 shutdowns per month for M5 units (between two to ten units).

combined heat and power↗

DOE OSTI2014

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Annual Site Environmental Report for Calendar Year 2013

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), one of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science’s 10 national laboratories, provides innovative science and technology development in the areas of energy and the environment, fundamental and computational science, and national security. DOE’s Pacific Northwest Site Office (PNSO) is responsible for oversight of PNNL at its Campus in Richland, Washington, as well as its facilities in Sequim, Seattle, and North Bonneville, Washington, and Corvallis and Portland, Oregon.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE OSTI2015

DC Fast Charger Usage in the Pacific Northwest

This document will describe the use of a number of Direct Current Fast Charging Stations throughout Washington and Oregon as a part of of the West Coast Electric Highway. It will detail the usage frequency and location of the charging stations INL has data from. It will also include aggregated data from hundreds of privately owned vehicles that were enrolled in the EV Project regarding driving distance when using one of the West Coast Electric Highway fast chargers. This document is a white paper that will be published on the INL AVTA website.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2015

Conjugated ionomers for photovoltaic applications: electric field driven charge separation in organic photovoltaics (Final Technical Report)

The central goal of the work we completed was been to understand the photochemical and photovoltaic properties of ionically functionalized conjugated polymers (conjugated ionomers or polyelectrolytes) and energy conversion systems based on them. We primarily studied two classes of conjugated polymer interfaces that we developed based either upon undoped conjugated polymers with an asymmetry in ionic composition (the ionic junction) or doped conjugated polymers with an asymmetry in doping type (the p-n junction). The materials used for these studies have primarily been the polyacetylene ionomers. We completed a detailed study of p-n junctions with systematically varying dopant density, photochemical creation of doped junctions, and experimental and theoretical work on charge transport and injection in polyacetylene ionomers. We have also completed related work on the use of conjugated ionomers as interlayers that improve the efficiency or organic photovoltaic systems and studied several important aspects of the chemistry of ionically functionalized semiconductors, including mechanisms of so-called "anion-doping", the formation of charge transfer complexes with oxygen, and the synthesis of new polyfluorene polyelectrolytes. We also worked worked with the Haley group at the University of Oregon on new indenofluorene-based organic acceptors.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2013

Variability in Measured Space Temperatures in 60 Homes

This report discusses the observed variability in indoor space temperature in a set of 60 homes located in Florida, New York, Oregon, and Washington. Temperature data were collected at 15-minute intervals for an entire year, including living room, master bedroom, and outdoor air temperature (Arena, et. al). The data were examined to establish the average living room temperature for the set of homes for the heating and cooling seasons, the variability of living room temperature depending on climate, and the variability of indoor space temperature within the homes. The accuracy of software-based energy analysis depends on the accuracy of input values. Thermostat set point is one of the most influential inputs for building energy simulation. Several industry standards exist that recommend differing default thermostat settings for heating and cooling seasons. These standards were compared to the values calculated for this analysis. The data examined for this report show that there is a definite difference between the climates and that the data do not agree well with any particular standard.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2014

Hood River Passive House

The Hood River Passive Project was developed by Root Design Build of Hood River Oregon using the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) to meet all of the requirements for certification under the European Passive House standards. The Passive House design approach has been gaining momentum among residential designers for custom homes and BEopt modeling indicates that these designs may actually exceed the goal of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Building America program to "reduce home energy use by 30%-50% (compared to 2009 energy codes for new homes). This report documents the short term test results of the Shift House and compares the results of PHPP and BEopt modeling of the project. The design includes high R-Value assemblies, extremely tight construction, high performance doors and windows, solar thermal DHW, heat recovery ventilation, moveable external shutters and a high performance ductless mini-split heat pump. Cost analysis indicates that many of the measures implemented in this project did not meet the BA standard for cost neutrality. The ductless mini-split heat pump, lighting and advanced air leakage control were the most cost effective measures. The future challenge will be to value engineer the performance levels indicated here in modeling using production based practices at a significantly lower cost.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2015

Advancement of Systems Designs and Key Engineering Technologies for Materials Based Hydrogen Storage

UTRC lead the development of the Simulink Framework model that enables a comparison of different hydrogen storage systems on a common basis. The Simulink Framework model was disseminated on the www.HSECoE.org website that is hosted by NREL. UTRC contributed to a better understanding of the safety aspects of the proposed hydrogen storage systems. UTRC also participated in the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis of both the chemical- and the adsorbent-based hydrogen storage system during Phase 2 of the Hydrogen Storage Engineering Center of Excellence. UTRC designed a hydrogen storage system with a reversible metal hydride material in a compacted form for light-duty vehicles with a 5.6 kg H2 storage capacity, giving it a 300 miles range. It contains a heat exchanger that enables efficient cooling of the metal hydride material during hydrogen absorption in order to meet the 3.3 minute refueling time target. It has been shown through computation that the kinetics of hydrogen absorption of Ti-catalyzed NaAlH4 was ultimately limiting the rate of hydrogen absorption to 85% of the material capacity in 3.3 minutes. An inverse analysis was performed in order to determine the material property requirements in order for a metal hydride based hydrogen storage system to meet the DOE targets. Work on metal hydride storage systems was halted after the Phase 1 to Phase 2 review due to the lack of metal hydride materials with the required material properties. UTRC contributed to the design of a chemical hydrogen storage system by developing an adsorbent for removing the impurity ammonia from the hydrogen gas, by developing a system to meter the transport of Ammonia Borane (AB) powder to a thermolysis reactor, and by developing a gas-liquid-separator (GLS) for the separation of hydrogen gas from AB slurry in silicone oil. Stripping impurities from hydrogen gas is essential for a long life of the fuel cell system on board of a vehicle. Work on solid transport of AB was halted after the Phase 1 to Phase 2 review in favor of studying the slurry-form of AB as it appeared to be difficult to transport a solid form of AB through the thermolysis reactor. UTRC demonstrated the operation of a compact GLS in the laboratory at a scale that would be required for the actual automotive application. The GLS met the targets for weight and volume. UTRC also reported about the unresolved issue associated with the high vapor pressure of fluids that could be used for making a slurry-form of AB. Work on the GLS was halted after the Phase 2 to Phase 3 review as the off-board regeneration efficiency of the spent AB was below the DOE target of 60%. UTRC contributed to the design of an adsorbent-based hydrogen storage system through measurements of the thermal conductivity of a compacted form of Metal Organic Framework (MOF) number 5 and through the development and sizing of a particulate filter. Thermal conductivity is important for the design of the modular adsorbent tank insert (MATI), as developed by Oregon State University (OSU), in order to enable a rapid refueling process. Stringent hydrogen quality requirements can only be met with an efficient particulate filtration system. UTRC developed a method to size the particulate filter by taking into account the effect of the pressure drop on the hydrogen adsorption process in the tank. UTRC raised awareness about the potential use of materials-based H2 storage systems in applications outside the traditional light-duty vehicle market segment by presenting at several conferences about niche application opportunities in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV), portable power and others.

08 HYDROGEN↗

DOE OSTI2015

Mobile Ocean Test Berth Support: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-10-413

The Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC), headquartered at the Oregon State University, is establishing the capabilities to test prototype wave energy conversion devices in the ocean. This CRADA will leverage the technical expertise and resources at NREL in the wind industry and in ocean engineering to support and enhance the development of the NNMREC Mobile Ocean Test Berth (MOTB). This CRADA will provide direct support to NNMREC by providing design evaluation and review of the MOTB, developing effective protocols for testing of the MOTB and wave energy conversion devices in the ocean, assisting in the specification of appropriate instrumentation and data acquisition packages, and providing guidance on obtaining and maintaining A2LA (American Association for Laboratory Accreditation) accreditation.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗

DOE OSTI2016

Recovery Act:Rural Cooperative Geothermal development Electric & Agriculture

Surprise Valley Electric, a small rural electric cooperative serving northeast California and southern Oregon, developed a 3mw binary geothermal electric generating plant on a cooperative member's ranch. The geothermal resource had been discovered in 1980 when the ranch was developing supplemental irrigation water wells. The 240°F resource was used for irrigation until developed through this project for generation of electricity. A portion of the spent geothermal fluid is now used for irrigation in season and is available for other purposes, such as greenhouse agriculture, aquaculture and direct heating of community buildings. Surprise Valley Electric describes many of the challenges a small rural electric cooperative encountered and managed to develop a geothermal generating plant.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2015

Delayed Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy for Non-Destructive Assay of Nuclear Materials

This project has been a collaborative effort of researchers from four National Laboratories, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (LBNL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and Idaho State University’s (ISU) Idaho Accelerator Center (IAC). Experimental measurements at the Oregon State University (OSU) were also supported. The research included two key components, a strong experimental campaign to characterize the delayed gamma-ray signatures of the isotopes of interests and of combined targets, and a closely linked modeling effort to assess system designs and applications. Experimental measurements were performed to evaluate fission fragment yields, to test methods for determining isotopic fractions, and to benchmark the modeling code package. Detailed signature knowledge is essential for analyzing the capabilities of the delayed gamma technique, optimizing measurement parameters, and specifying neutron source and gamma-ray detection system requirements. The research was divided into three tasks: experimental measurements, characterization of fission yields, and development of analysis methods (task 1), modeling in support of experiment design and analysis and for the assessment of applications (task 2), and high-rate gamma-ray detector studies (task 3).

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2013

AFIP-7 Tomography – 2013 Status Report

This project seeks to assess the geometric stability of the U-Mo monolithic fuel system by evaluating the radiation-induced changes in the AFIP-7 experiment device. Neutron radiography and computed tomography (CT) provide valuable information about the post-irradiation condition of the fuel specimen. Tomographic reconstructions of the AFIP-7 fuel element will be analyzed to assess the geometric condition of the element after irradiation and provide information regarding the condition of the fuel, including gross geometric defects, bowing, twist, plate buckling, cracks, and other defects. The INL, in collaboration with Oregon State University (OSU), Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), and Real Time Tomography, is developing advanced neutron detector systems and tomographic reconstruction techniques to evaluate the AFIP-7 fuel element. Neutron computed tomography using the current neutron radiography technique available at the Neutron Radiography reactor (NRAD) is impractical due to the long time and high cost to produce a set of images for tomographic reconstruction. Advanced neutron radiography systems such as the micro-channel plate (MCP) detector and neutron computed radiography (CR) may reduce the time and cost of acquiring images for neutron CT. The MCP detector system tested at OSU and Missouri S&T provides neutron radiographs and has lower gamma sensitivity compared to other digital acquisition image systems. However, some significant, but not prohibitive, challenges must be overcome to make its use for imaging nuclear fuel more practical. Images taken with the MCP require significant image processing to reduce distortions and correct for the dynamic detector response. Also, the small active area of the detector (~30 mm diameter) requires the collection and combination of several images of a specimen, which may become time-consuming. The MCP is tested in low gamma dose environments, but should also be tested in the gamma field at the INL. In addition to the MCP detector system, the INL is developing neutron computed radiography (CR), which uses the same foil transfer method currently employed at the NRAD, but replaces the film with a photostimulable storage phosphor imaging plate that is sensitive to the decay radiation from the activated transfer foils. Preliminary tests show that neutron CR provides lower, but comparable spatial resolution properties to film radiography images using the transfer method technique already employed at the NRAD. However, there are many factors that affect the spatial resolution of neutron CR that can be adjusted and possibly provide spatial resolution properties that exceed film radiography. The reduction in cost of neutron CR may be significant, which would make neutron imaging more appealing to programs that would benefit from this rare and valuable capability. Because transfer method neutron radiography is expensive and time-consuming, acquisition of a full set of radiographs for tomographic reconstruction is impractical. The INL is developing tomographic reconstruction techniques that require only a small set of radiographs of the AFIP-7 fuel element. These tomosynthesis techniques are tested using archived radiographs of TREAT experiments for CT as a proof of principle. These same techniques are applied to radiographs taken with an MCP detector of a mock-up of the AFIP-7 geometry. Acquisition angle should at least match the curvature of AFIP-7 plates. Lateral (in-plane) reconstruction resolution will be best when the projection angles include views at or near the desired reconstruction view angles. The ends of the fuel plates are angled at ±17.7° relative to the center of the plate. Increasing the number of projections is desirable, but given the constraint of minimizing the number of projections, the projection acquisition angle should also span at least ±17.7° to optimize the lateral resolution of the angled reconstruction planes used to visualize the gaps at the ends of the fuel plates. If possible, enough projections should be used within the initial acquisition angle of 35.4° (±17.7°) to bring the projection angular sampling closer to 1°. Further testing will determine a more specific recommendation for the number and angular distribution of neutron radiographs that will produce the highest quality tomographic reconstruction of the AFIP-7 fuel element.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

DOE OSTI2016

PRIMA-X Final Report

The PRIMA-X (Performance Retargeting of Instrumentation, Measurement, and Analysis Technologies for Exascale Computing) project is the successor of the DOE PRIMA (Performance Refactoring of Instrumentation, Measurement, and Analysis Technologies for Petascale Computing) project, which addressed the challenge of creating a core measurement infrastructure that would serve as a common platform for both integrating leading parallel performance systems (notably TAU and Scalasca) and developing next-generation scalable performance tools. The PRIMA-X project shifts the focus away from refactorization of robust performance tools towards a re-targeting of the parallel performance measurement and analysis architecture for extreme scales. The massive concurrency, asynchronous execution dynamics, hardware heterogeneity, and multi-objective prerequisites (performance, power, resilience) that identify exascale systems introduce fundamental constraints on the ability to carry forward existing performance methodologies. In particular, there must be a deemphasis of per-thread observation techniques to significantly reduce the otherwise unsustainable flood of redundant performance data. Instead, it will be necessary to assimilate multi-level resource observations into macroscopic performance views, from which resilient performance metrics can be attributed to the computational features of the application. This requires a scalable framework for node-level and system-wide monitoring and runtime analyses of dynamic performance information. Also, the interest in optimizing parallelism parameters with respect to performance and energy drives the integration of tool capabilities in the exascale environment further. Initially, PRIMA-X was a collaborative project between the University of Oregon (lead institution) and the German Research School for Simulation Sciences (GRS). Because Prof. Wolf, the PI at GRS, accepted a position as full professor at Technische Universität Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt) starting February 1st, 2015, the project ended at GRS on January 31st, 2015. This report reflects the work accomplished at GRS until then. The work of GRS is expected to be continued at TU Darmstadt. The first main accomplishment of GRS is the design of different thread-level aggregation techniques. We created a prototype capable of aggregating the thread-level information in performance profiles using these techniques. The next step will be the integration of the most promising techniques into the Score-P measurement system and their evaluation. The second main accomplishment is a substantial increase of Score-P’s scalability, achieved by improving the design of the system-tree representation in Score-P’s profile format. We developed a new representation and a distributed algorithm to create the scalable system tree representation. Finally, we developed a lightweight approach to MPI wait-state profiling. Former algorithms either needed piggy-backing, which can cause significant runtime overhead, or tracing, which comes with its own set of scaling challenges. Our approach works with local data only and, thus, is scalable and has very little overhead.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2015

Installation and Initial Operation of DOE's 449-MHz Wind Profiling Radars on the U.S. West Coast

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has recently completed the installation of three new wind profiling radars on the Washington and Oregon coasts. These systems operate at a frequency of 449 MHz and provide mean wind profiles to a height of roughly 8 km, with the maximum measurement height depending on time-varying atmospheric conditions. This is roughly half the depth of the troposphere at these latitudes. Each system is also equipped with a radio acoustic sounding system (RASS), which provides a measure of the temperature profile to heights of approximately 2 km. Other equipment deployed alongside the radar includes a surface meteorological station and GPS for column water vapor. This project began in fiscal year 2014, starting with equipment procurements and site selection. In addition, environmental reviews, equipment assembly and testing, site access agreements, and infrastructure preparations have been performed. Finally, with equipment deployment with data collection and dissemination, the primary tasks of this project have been completed. The three new wind profiling radars have been deployed at airports near Coos Bay, OR, and Astoria, OR, and at an industrial park near Forks, WA. Data are available through the NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory Data Display website, and will soon be made available through the DOE Atmosphere to Electrons data archive and portal as well.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2015

TAP Report - Southwest Idaho Juniper Working Group

There is explicit need for characterization of the materials for possible commercialization as little characterization data exists. Pinyon-juniper woodlands are a major ecosystem type found in the Southwest and the Intermountain West regions of the United States including Nevada, Idaho and Oregon. These widespread ecosystems are characterized by the presence of several different species of pinyon and juniper as the dominant plant cover. Since the 1800s, pinyon-juniper woodlands have rapidly expanded their range at the expense of existing ecosystems. Additionally, existing woodlands have become denser, progressively creating potential fire hazards as seen in the Soda Fire, which burned more than 400 sq. miles. Land managers responsible for these areas often desire to reduce pinyon-juniper coverage on their lands for a variety of reasons, as stated in the Working Group objectives. However, the cost of clearing thinning pinyon-juniper stands can be prohibitive. One reason for this is the lack of utilization options for the resulting biomass that could help recover some of the cost of pinyon-juniper stand management. The goal of this TAP effort was to assess the feedstock characteristics of biomass from a juniper harvested from Owyhee County to evaluate possible fuel and conversion utilization options.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2016

Antigovernment Groups. A Growing Threat to US Security

Domestic terrorism is a growing threat in the United States, particularly from the 998 right-wing antigovernment (AG) groups in existence in 2015. In the years since the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, right-wing anti-government acts have oc- curred more often and killed more people in the United States than Muslim extremists. Such AG group members are often in uenced by racist, anti-Semitic, or anti-Islamic views, believe conspiracy theories about the government, and often refuse to pay taxes or participate in frivolous lawsuits in order to intentionally waste the government's time. There is, however, a violent element to these groups which participates in events ranging from the armed take-over of federal land in Oregon, to an armed stand-o with federal agents in Nevada, to the bombing of the Oklahoma City building which killed 168 people. Such acts may be conducted by a few individuals, as is the case of the Oklahoma City bombing, or an entire group. Such groups have a wide range of capabilities, with typical weapons including legal and illegal rearms, with a focus on purchasing fully automatic weapons; hand grenades, with some homemade; deadly tox- ins, like ricin (in multiple cases) and sodium cyanide (in one case); transportation, such as all-terrain vehicles (ATVs); arson, with the intent of destroying federal property; and explosives, often in large numbers and including pipe bombs, truck bombs, IEDs, and other homemade explosives. The growing acceptance of these violent methods by Republican congressmen and governors, however, only increases visibility of such groups and encourages their behavior. Coupled with the removal of the Department of Homeland Security's division responsible for monitoring such groups, the result could prove disastrous for the safety of United States citizens.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

DOE OSTI2013

Test of a 250 kVA Battery-Inverter System Micro-Grid: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-11-460

Portland General Electric (PGE) is installing a 5-megawatt (MW) lithium-ion-based battery-inverter system (BIS) in Salem, Oregon, as part of the Pacific Northwest Smart Grid Demonstration Project. NREL will assist PGE in testing a 250-kilovolt-ampere (kVA) portion of the BIS in order to verify correct operation and minimize risk to subsequent demonstrations. In this project NREL will providetechnical support for the 250-kVA test and will work with PGE to write a test plan and evaluate the system in the lab before deployment in the field.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

DOE OSTI2015

A Technical and Economic Optimization Approach to Exploring Offshore Renewable Energy Development in Hawaii

This study was conducted with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Wind and Water Power Technologies Office (WWPTO) as part of ongoing efforts to minimize key risks and reduce the cost and time associated with permitting and deploying ocean renewable energy. The focus of the study was to discuss a possible approach to exploring scenarios for ocean renewable energy development in Hawaii that attempts to optimize future development based on technical, economic, and policy criteria. The goal of the study was not to identify potentially suitable or feasible locations for development, but to discuss how such an approach may be developed for a given offshore area. Hawaii was selected for this case study due to the complex nature of the energy climate there and DOE’s ongoing involvement to support marine spatial planning for the West Coast. Primary objectives of the study included 1) discussing the political and economic context for ocean renewable energy development in Hawaii, especially with respect to how inter-island transmission may affect the future of renewable energy development in Hawaii; 2) applying a Geographic Information System (GIS) approach that has been used to assess the technical suitability of offshore renewable energy technologies in Washington, Oregon, and California, to Hawaii’s offshore environment; and 3) formulate a mathematical model for exploring scenarios for ocean renewable energy development in Hawaii that seeks to optimize technical and economic suitability within the context of Hawaii’s existing energy policy and planning.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗