Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “solar and storage”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Assessing the New Home Market Opportunity: Case Study and Cost Modeling for Solar and Storage in 2030

Residential solar and storage markets are growing in the United States. With approximately 1 million new homes constructed every year, this represents a significant opportunity for solar and storage installations. Some homebuilders have begun to build new homes with solar and storage included as a standard offering. It is not clear how solar and storage is incorporated into the new construction process and at what cost. Further, it is unclear what barriers or opportunities exist to scale this model nationwide. To fill this gap in the literature, this research conducts a case study of Mandalay Homes' new solar and storage community in Arizona to gather lessons learned. From this foundation, we further generate a set of pathways to reduce install costs and expand solar and storage market penetration in this sector. To model existing and 2030 solar and storage costs, we use the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) bottom-up cost model. This modeling is further informed by 12 interviews conducted with new home builders, solar contractors, and other subject matter expert organizations. Our case study analysis generated three key considerations for other homebuilders including: 1. Educating local permitting, inspection, and in some cases utility officials on solar and storage products, designs, and code compliant building practices may be required. The need for education may decline as more local governments and utilities review and approve solar and storage projects. 2. Incorporating solar and storage systems into the homebuilding process can add complexity and related coordination challenges. This does not need to result in home construction delays, but can result in costly contractor "dry runs" to construction sites. 3. Deploying solar and storage at the time of new construction has significant economies of scale, which can improve the value proposition of the systems. The case study, extant literature, and interviews were used to model both existing and future solar and storage installation costs at time of new construction. Here, we find three key cost reduction opportunities relating to solar and battery storage hardware, customer acquisition, and overhead. If future contractors can maximize the cost reduction opportunities outlined here, residential new construction costs could decline by 8 - 25% by 2030, depending on the modeled scenario. Though we expect costs to decline through 2030, it is unclear which of these scenarios may ultimately appear. Interviewees further identified a variety of barriers across each cost category that could temper the savings shown here. At the same time, interviewees described several pathways to scale the new construction solar and storage market, beyond installation cost savings. Interviewees confirmed that changes in finance, rate design, resilience policies, deployment mandates, and DER aggregation could all support more market adoption than seen today. These findings suggest that there are significant opportunities to expand new construction markets and this research can serve as a baseline to assess progress in this segment through 2030.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Storage Futures Study: Distributed Solar and Storage Outlook: Methodology and Scenarios

This report is one in a series of NREL’s Storage Futures Study (SFS) publications. The SFS is a multiyear research project that explores the role and impact of energy storage in the evolution and operation of the U.S. power sector. The SFS is designed to examine the potential impact of energy storage technology advancement on the deployment of utility-scale storage and the adoption of distributed storage, and the implications for future power system infrastructure investment and operations. The research findings and supporting data will be published as a series of reports, with each report being released on its completion. The table below lists the specific research topics planned for examination under the SFS and the associated publication formats. This report, the fourth in the SFS series, provides a set of scenarios for cost-effectiveness and customer adoption for a range of scenarios that include future technology costs and valuation of backup power. The SFS series provides data and analysis in support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge, a comprehensive program to accelerate the development, commercialization, and utilization of next-generation energy storage technologies and sustain American global leadership in energy storage. The Energy Storage Grand Challenge employs a use case framework to ensure storage technologies can cost-effectively meet specific needs, and it incorporates a broad range of technologies in several categories: electrochemical, electromechanical, thermal, flexible generation, flexible buildings, and power electronics. More information, any supporting data associated with this report, links to other reports in the series, and other information about the broader study are available at https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/storage-futures.html.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Solar-Plus-Storage Program Design: Frameworks and Examples [Slides]

The Columbia River Treaty Tribes in the Pacific Northwest - the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama - hold treaty-reserved fishing rights for the Columbia River, the largest river in North America flowing into the Pacific Ocean. The four Tribes, through the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), prepared a vision for a more harmonized energy and water system in their 2022 Energy Vision for the Columbia River Basin. In it, the four Tribes envision a future where the Columbia Basin electric power system supports healthy and harvestable fish and wildlife populations, protects Tribal treaty and cultural resources, and provides clean, reliable, and affordable electricity. To help realize the Energy Vision, CRITFC received technical assistance from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) through the Communities Local Energy Action Program (LEAP) pilot with the goal of ensuring that the Tribes are fully informed and prepared to integrate their interests into regional power system planning. This resource aims to provide an overview of program and policy design frameworks for behind-the-meter (BTM) energy storage and solar-plus-storage programs and examples from across the United States. This information is intended to build CRITFC's understanding of potential policies and program designs that could support the deployment of solar photovoltaics (PV) and energy storage in the Pacific Northwest.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1979

Research on medium and high temperature solar heat storage materials

Characteristics of solar heat storage materials, preliminary tests in which melting and solidification characteristics are tested, and service life and cycling tests are reported. Various aspects of corrosion are discussed as well as decision about ultimate selection of materials. A program for storage and evaluation of data is included.

Heine, D.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Optimizing the physical design and layout of a resilient wind, solar, and storage hybrid power plant

We report as wind and solar technologies improve and their costs decrease, the share of power produced by these sources will increase. As the market penetration increases, these power sources will need to provide grid services, such as dispatchability, in addition to providing energy. One way to reduce variability, provide higher quality power to the grid, and address local grid stability issues is through colocating wind and solar power plants. In addition to operating reliably during normal operating conditions, in scenarios with high penetrations of renewable generation, it is important that these hybrid plants can withstand production disruptions and continue to supply power despite prolonged resource reduction, extreme weather events, or other disruptions. In this paper, we present a methodology to optimize a wind-solar-battery hybrid power plant down to the component level that is resilient against production disruptions and that can continually produce some minimum required power. We introduce the models and assumptions we used to simulate a hybrid power plant as well as the design variable parameterization and specific methods we used to optimize the plant. We demonstrate the performance of our method by comparing a plant optimized for different objectives, generation outage durations, minimum power requirements, and power purchase agreements. Although the plant design is sensitive to model parameters and various other assumptions, our results demonstrate some of the optimal designs that occur in different scenarios and what one should expect when designing a hybrid wind-solar-storage power plant.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

A New Era for Solar and Storage: Partnering for Continued Success

Solar energy has grown faster than experts projected. Energy storage technologies are poised to repeat that success, enabling a partnership to keep the lights on even after the sun sets. As current impacts and growing threats of climate change become more visible and the world accelerates efforts to adopt new clean-energy technology, electricity generation from solar and wind is playing an increasing role in the energy system. However, it can be confusing - we hear that solar has great potential, but we also hear that solar and wind are too small to make a meaningful difference, providing just 3% and 6% of the world's electricity in 2020, respectively (1). What is the reality and what can we expect in the coming years? This article focuses on solar, but wind has an equally impressive and interesting story. This article reviews how prices for solar have dropped dramatically and deployment has increased correspondingly to the point where solar is almost half of the new electricity generating capacity being installed globally today. It shows how solar-generated electricity has grown to the point where we need to pair it with storage or other strategies for balancing electricity supply and demand. The article also explores how lithium-ion batteries are replicating solar technology's big success and discusses new storage technologies that are being developed.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1977

Parametric study of rock pile thermal storage for solar heating and cooling phase 1

The test data and an analysis were presented, of heat transfer characteristics of a solar thermal energy storage bed utilizing water filled cans as the energy storage medium. An attempt was made to optimize can size, can arrangement, and bed flow rates by experimental and analytical means. Liquid filled cans, as storage media, utilize benefits of both solids like rocks, and liquids like water. It was found that this combination of solid and liquid media shows unique heat transfer and heat content characteristics and is well suited for use with solar air systems for space and hot water heating. An extensive parametric study was made of heat transfer characteristics of rocks, of other solids, and of solid containers filled with liquids.

Saha, H.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Advanced solar thermal storage medium test data and analysis

A comparative study has been made of experimentally obtained heat transfer and heat storage characteristics of a solar thermal energy storage bed utilizing containerized water or phase change material (PCM) and rock or brick. It is shown that (1) containers with an L/D ratio of 0.80 and a mass/surface area ratio of 2.74 in a random stacking arrangement have the optimum heat transfer characteristics; and (2) vertical stacking has the least pressure drop across the test bed. It is also found that standard bricks with appropriate holes make an excellent storage medium.

Saha, H.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Resilience Valuation and Planning for Solar and Storage on Critical Infrastructure

This case study report documents the City's project evolution and the entrepreneurial ways through which the City approached the questions of how solar and storage could support their resilience efforts and how to value and pay for solar-plus-storage systems. This report documents how and why the City of Reno came to the specific conclusion to integrate solar and storage into their Public Safety Center retrofit project and apply for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) funding. (The City of Reno applied for and was awarded FEMA BRIC funding in January 2021; leveraging work that was underway in this project.) This report provides an overview for other local governments to draw inspiration from when considering how to prioritize community values and pursue multi-stakeholder dialogue around resilient energy solutions. The City of Reno's experience can serve as a starting point for other communities interested in valuing the resilience benefits of solar and storage.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Developing Consensus Recommendations to Address Challenges with Solar and Solar-Plus-Storage Code Enforcement and Permitting Approvals

The Sustainable Energy Action Committee (SEAC) provides a national platform for collaboration between key stakeholders in code enforcement and permitting for solar and solar-plus-storage projects. The outcomes from SEAC include code and standard proposals, guidance documents, information bulletins and stakeholder education. With this work, permitting and inspection of solar and solar+storage systems uses best practices, enhances safety, and becomes more efficient reducing costs for both jurisdictions and installers.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Backup power or bill savings? How electricity tariffs impact residential solar-plus-storage usage in the United States

Adoption of paired solar-plus-storage systems has accelerated in recent years, driven by both the demand for backup power and a desire to manage utility bills. Tradeoffs between those two uses can arise through the reserve setting on the battery storage system, which serves to maintain a minimum state of charge in case of a power interruption. Our paper applies an economic framework to evaluate this tradeoff in terms of changes in bill savings and customer reliability value across reserve levels, considering how those tradeoffs depend on the underlying electricity rate structure and levels. The analysis is based on a representative set of load profiles, solar profiles, tariff designs, and stochastic power interruption events across ten different regions in the United States. We find that the opportunity cost of holding storage capacity in reserve, in terms of foregone bill reductions, outweighs any gains in reliability value from mitigated power interruptions in the majority of customer situations. Higher storage reserve levels increase total customer value only in specific circumstances, such as for customers with inferior reliability (10x average interruptions), with a very high value of lost load ($50/kWh), and with tariff or interconnection rules that disallow grid charging. However, even this result is dampened when considering tariff designs with higher price differentials that increase the opportunity cost of holding storage in reserve (e.g. import/export or time-of-use rates). Allowing grid charging in tariffs essentially eliminates the necessity to hold any storage in reserve in all sensitivity cases explored.

Electric resilience↗
DOE OSTI2020

A simple and fast algorithm for estimating the capacity credit of solar and storage

Energy storage is a leading option to enhance the resource adequacy contribution of solar energy. Detailed analysis of the capacity credit of solar energy and energy storage is limited in part due to the data intensive and computationally complex nature of probabilistic resource adequacy assessments. This paper presents a simple algorithm for calculating the capacity credit of energy-limited resources that, due to the low computational and data needs, is well suited to exploratory analysis. Validation against benchmarks based on probabilistic techniques shows that it can yield similar insights. The method is used to evaluate the impact of different solar and storage configurations, particularly with respect to the strategy for coupling storage and solar photovoltaic systems. Furthermore, application of the method to a case study of utilities in Florida, where solar is rapidly growing and demand peaks in the winter and summer, demonstrates that it can improve on rules of thumb used in practice by some utilities. If storage is required to charge only from solar, periods of high demand driven by cold weather events accompanied by lower solar production can result in a capacity credit of solar and storage that is less than the capacity credit of storage alone.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Case Study of the City of Reno: Resilience Valuation and Planning for Solar and Storage on Critical Infrastructure

This case study report documents the City of Reno's efforts to quantify the value of resilience and the entrepreneurial ways through which the City approached the questions of what role solar and storage could play in their resilience efforts and how to value and pay for solar-plus-storage systems. It documents how and why the City of Reno came to the specific conclusion to integrate solar and storage into their Public Safety Center retrofit project and apply for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) funding. This report provides an overview for other local governments to draw inspiration from when considering how to prioritize community values and pursue multi-stakeholder dialogue around resilient energy solutions. The City of Reno's experience can serve as a starting point for other communities interested in valuing the resilience benefits of solar and storage.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Solar and Storage Integration in the U.S. Southeast: Implications for Resource Adequacy

Resource adequacy concerns may be very different in electricity systems that have higher levels of solar and storage, requiring changes to existing planning models. This study explores a novel approach to evaluating resource adequacy under future scenarios with higher solar and storage in the Southeast U.S. It uses NREL’s Probabilistic Resource Adequacy Suite (PRAS), a collection of probabilistic resource adequacy modeling tools, and compares results when interacting PRAS and a portfolio planning tool with a more traditional modeling approach. The results suggest that traditional models perform reasonably well with lower levels of solar PV, but at higher levels of solar probabilistic tools better capture the changes in resource adequacy concerns—such as winter energy availability—associated with higher solar systems. This is the final study in the Preparing Southeast Markets for Reliable and Affordable Integration of Solar into Operations and Planning project. Two prior reports can be found at: Solar and Storage Integration in the Southeastern United States: Economics, Reliability, and Operations. https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/solar-and-storage-integration Solar and Wind Forecast Error Reserve Sharing in a Multi-Utility Region. https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/multiutility_fe_reserve_sharing_final.pdf

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗