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At least 541 records · Page 30
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Smart DG Hub Resilient Solar Project Final Report

Hurricanes, unstable fossil fuel supplies and increased energy loads have revealed the vulnerability of America’s electric grids. Renewable energy has emerged as a viable option; however in order for this sector to reach its full potential it needs to be paired with storage. For example, all of the solar installations in New York City in 2014 were wired to automatically shut down during grid outages for safety reasons and lacked battery backup or other means to function during outages. Pairing solar with batteries can provide critical power needs and reduce dependency on delivered fuel. Additionally, resilient solar systems can also provide benefits outside of emergencies such as utility bill savings and grid support services. Solar+Storage needed a pathway through regulatory, policy and financial hurdles, some of which are unique to urban environments. Sustainable CUNY of the City University of New York (CUNY) formed the Smart Distributed Generation (DG) Hub to develop a strategic pathway to a resilient distributed energy system that integrates storage into resiliency planning and provide support to the grid on peak power days. Through the Smart DG Hub Resilient Solar Project, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as well as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the New York Power Authority and private funding, Sustainable CUNY worked with project partners - including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Meister Consultant Group (now Cadmus), subject matter experts at utility companies, and authorities having jurisdiction - to develop a roadmap for the greater deployment of solar+storage as well as a toolkit of resources. Ultimately, in addition to the completed deliverables of multiple resources, the project established a baseline of the current policy, financial, and market landscape, and an understanding of which key areas would require further actions. The DG Hub’s collaborative platform and subject matter expertise gained through this project led directly to a new award from the NYS Energy Research & Development Authority to continue CUNY’s work in targeted areas including energy storage permitting and stakeholder education, similar to the way DOE’s prior support had sowed the initial seeds for the growth of the solar market in NYC, to the NYS market. Finally, the Resilient Solar Project helped inform the New York City (NYC) administration, leading to a significant policy development that included Mayor Bill de Blasio setting a city-wide storage goal of 100 MW by 2020, the first of any city in the country.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Understanding DERMS

With the rapid deployment of distributed energy resources (DER), there is a high level of interest in how these devices can be integrated with utility operations at all levels for management and monitoring purposes. This integration is challenging in that the number of devices is high and that ownership is often that of a customer or third party. Industry stakeholders first began to address DER integration by identifying and standardizing the functions that individual DER can perform autonomously, a distributed manner. Device-level functions like “voltage ride-through”, “volt-var”, “frequency-watt”, and “dynamic reactive current” were designed and documented and are now supported by communication standards and grid codes worldwide, making grid-supportive capabilities mandatory for new interconnections. This was a first step. A necessary step, but not sufficient to achieve end-to-end integration of DER with the grid. A substantial gap was recognized between the granular controls of individual DER and the type of organized services needed for grid support, integration with distribution management systems (DMS) and grid operations. In 2012, stakeholders began working to define a common set of grid-supportive services and means to integrate large quantities of DERs into utility systems in a way that is practical, sustainable and extensible. Because multiple parties could be involved; utilities, DMS providers, DER aggregators and facility/microgrid controller providers are working together.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Assessing DER Network Cybersecurity Defences in a Power-Communication Co-Simulation Environment

Increasing penetrations of interoperable distributed energy resources (DER) in the electric power system are expanding the power system attack surface. Maloperation or malicious control of DER equipment can now cause substantial disturbances to grid operations. Fortunately, many options exist to defend and limit adversary impact on these newly-created DER communication networks, which typically traverse the public internet. However, implementing these security features will increase communication latency, thereby adversely impacting real-time DER grid support service effectiveness. In this work, a collection of software tools called SCEPTRE were used to create a co-simulation environment where SunSpec-compliant PV inverters were deployed as virtual machines and interconnected to simulated communication network equipment. Network segmentation, encryption, and moving target defence security features were deployed on the control network to evaluate their influence on cybersecurity metrics and power system performance. The results indicated that adding these security features did not impact DER-based grid control systems but improved the cybersecurity posture of the network when implemented appropriately.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2020

An Evaluation of the Economic and Resilience Benefits of a Microgrid in Northampton, Massachusetts

Recent developments and advances in distributed energy resource (DER) technologies make them valuable assets in microgrids. This paper presents an innovative evaluation framework for microgrid assets to capture economic benefits from various grid and behind-the-meter services in grid-connecting mode and resilience benefits in islanding mode. In particular, a linear programming formulation is used to model different services and DER operational constraints to determine the optimal DER dispatch to maximize economic benefits. For the resiliency analysis, a stochastic evaluation procedure is proposed to explicitly quantify the microgrid survivability against a random outage, considering uncertainties associated with photovoltaic (PV) generation, system load, and distributed generator failures. Optimal coordination strategies are developed to minimize unserved energy and improve system survivability, considering different levels of system connectedness. The proposed framework has been applied to evaluate a proposed microgrid in Northampton, Massachusetts that would link the Northampton Department of Public Works, Cooley Dickenson Hospital, and Smith Vocational Area High School. The findings of this analysis indicate that over a 20-year economic life, a 441 kW/441 kWh battery energy storage system, and 386 kW PV solar array can generate $2.5 million in present value benefits, yielding a 1.16 return on investment ratio. Results of this study also show that forming a microgrid generally improves system survivability, but the resilience performance of individual facilities varies depending on power-sharing strategies.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Organizational Influence on Supply Chain for Digital Energy Infrastructure: Business Models, and Policy Landscape

Significant investment is driving the essential modernization and digitization of U.S. energy infrastructure, but the United States faces a key challenge in this grid transformation: our renewable and clean energy supply chains have limited capacity to source necessary digital assets through U.S. or allied sources. Batteries and their associated power electronic interfaces are key components to delivering clean and more resilient energy delivery, providing much-needed fast ramping, emergency discharge, generation, and operations support to the electric grid. These services have grown to be invaluable over the past 10 years and will soon be an irreplaceable component of energy delivery. While there have been significant strides to move supply chains for raw and critical materials to U.S. and allied nations, the control and power electronic industry has lagged, in part because of lower cost margins. For example, the United States now has growing capacity to manufacture solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, but 90% of the inverters—which are essential to the conversion of DC to AC for grid connection and controls—are made in or source parts from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). While a global supply chain is beneficial for many economic and supply diversification reasons, presence of foreign entities of concern (FEOC) in a dominant role in this supply chain brings additional concerns for national security of infrastructure. The BESS relationship and new clean energy have features that warrant discussions and additional focus on impact for technology security, given their critical role. This review considers the impact and solutions for complex business and policy landscapes in clean energy supply chain, and the benefit trade-offs, focusing on the Battery Energy Storage System case study, and its complex organizational relationships across both the US, Allied countries and Foreign Entities of Concern. While many examples in this paper are presented on PRC focused manufacture, this could apply to any potentially adversarial relationship

25 - ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Cyber-Physical Event Emulation-Based Transmission-and-Distribution Co-Simulation for Situational Awareness of Grid Anomalies (SAGA)

Energy management of transmission and distribution networks (T&D) is becoming more challenging with the accelerated adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs)-such as distributed photovoltaic generation and battery energy storage systems (BESS)-on the electric grid. To better analyze the impacts of DERs on both transmission and distribution systems, a comprehensive T&D co-simulation platform is developed. Further, with DERs more actively participating in system operation-e.g., by providing real-time grid services-their cyber vulnerability needs to be better understood to maintain system reliability. This paper discusses a cyber-physical events emulation-based T&D co-simulation platform to perform comprehensive cyber events emulations, physical simulation, and analysis of interdependent impacts. Results from the case studies-which show how cyber events on a synthetic distribution network can impact operations on the transmission and distribution network-validate that the proposed T&D cosimulation platform can perform cyber-physical events emulation and produce response in near realtime; therefore, with extensive simulation using the proposed co-simulation platform, the system operators can accumulate adequate training data for system situational awareness of grid anomalies.

anomalies detection↗
DOE OSTI2024

High-Power Oak Ridge Converter (ORC) for Extreme Fast Charging Applications

This project report presents a novel power converter system called Oak Ridge Converter (ORC), a patented technology developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for XFC wireless EV charging systems. ORC integrates the grid interface converter (also known as the active front-end rectifier with power factor correction) with the high-frequency inverter stage, promoting size and cost-effective charging technology with reduced infrastructure costs. The integration of the front-end rectifier with the high-frequency inverter truly eliminates one power conversion stage and achieves more than 33% size, weight, volume, and cost reduction on the wireless charging systems. Furthermore, ORC eliminates the primary side direct current (DC) bus bulk capacitors that are usually aluminum electrolytic capacitors and replaces them with very small, cost-effective, highly reliable, and high-temperature operation-capable alternate current (AC) film capacitors. ORC is also applicable to both single-phase and poly-phase couplers. When used with polyphase couplers, ORC further improves the power density of the overall system with higher power density power electronics. Moreover, ORC is inherently bidirectional and allows the system to provide power back to the grid for grid ancillary or grid support services. The ORC, based on a patented ORNL technology, is an excellent approach to resolving the high-power charging problems as described above, which directly converts the 60 hertz (Hz) line frequency into high frequency (i.e., 85 kilohertz (kHz)) to use with a high-frequency isolation transformer or wireless charging coils while eliminating the primary side number of power conversion stages from two to one. The result of the project is a prototype and reference design for a high-power wireless charging system—including power electronics, magnetics, and thermal—serving as a baseline for product development. The proposed system results are demonstrated for 270 kW of output power, with the system's overall efficiency of 92% from the AC grid, achieving less than 3% current total harmonic distortion (THD) and around 0.99 power factor (PF).

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Computational Framework for Energy Storage Participation in Transmission Planning with Electricity Market Participation

Energy storage technologies—including pumped storage hydropower (PSH), batteries, and other technologies—have been technically proven to be capable of providing transmission services by regulating power flows and providing voltage support. These technologies will potentially increase the flexibility of transmission infrastructure and may defer (or eliminate) the need for transmission upgrades or new investments. On the regulatory side, Congress and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have issued several orders over decades that have established energy storage’s (ES) eligibility as a transmission asset. The orders have required transmission planning entities to provide a level playing field where ES can participate in the transmission planning process (TPP) without undue discrimination and preference of technology. These developments pave the way for ES to participate in transmission planning as a transmission asset. On the other hand, as a flexible resource, ES can play an important role in the electricity market to enable more renewable energy integration by providing energy and grid reliability services. This could bring more revenue in return.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Making Coal Relevant for Small Scale Applications: Modular Gasification for Syngas/Engine CHP Applications in Challenging Environments

This Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study is funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE), and managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) through a Cooperative Agreement awarded to the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) to perform a technical and cost study for the design and installation of a Hamilton-Maurer International (HMI) gasifier for generating a clean syngas for firing in reciprocating engines. An existing diesel engine generator (DEG) and a commercially available spark ignition engine are used to generate electricity with the low-Btu syngas. Other than the HMI gasifier, only commercially available technologies were assumed for this study. An important objective of this design study was to estimate capital and operating costs of small modular coal and coal/biomass fired generating units to provide wind regulation services. Although this study is based on retrofitting an existing coal fired power plant with the HMI gasifier, sufficient data was developed to characterize greenfield units. The original concept was to provide clean syngas and tars/oils from the gasification process to the existing Colt-Pielstick PC2.6B diesel engine generator (9.6 MWe) installed at the UAF Atkinson Power Plant. The intent was to convert the diesel engine to operate in a dual fuel mode, firing both syngas and tars/oils. As the project progressed, Fairbanks Morse Engine (FME), current licensee for the Colt-Pielstick engine line, was not able to develop a modification package for the engine to allow for syngas firing. Although this type of modification is available for firing natural gas, the capability does not extend to syngas. Western Energy Systems, distributor for Innio Jenbacher, was able to offer the Jenbacher Model JMS620 engine. After review of available options, the project team selected a design configuration using two Jenbacher engines rated at 1965 kWe each to fire the syngas, with the oils/tars directed to the Colt Pielstick diesel to be blended with ultra-low sulfur diesel oil (ULSD). The Jenbacher engines are expected to operate at continuous base load, with some load-following ability, while the existing diesel engine will operate in grid support service, with loads varying from a nominal 25% to 100%. An annual capacity factor for the diesel engine is projected to be between 50% and 60%. The overall gasifier and gas clean-up system is sized to produce enough syngas to adequately fuel three Jenbacher Engines for a nominal power output of 5.9 MWe, but this study assumes that only two Jenbacher engines will be installed due to space constraints in the Atkinson Power Plant, and because of expected air emission permit limitations. There is still potential that the excess syngas capacity equivalent to about 2 MWe could be used as supplemental fuel for the DEG. The exhaust from the Jenbacher engines is passed through heat recovery units to generate low pressure steam, thereby providing a significant portion of the steam required for operating the gasifier. The overall performance of the HMI gasifier/engine configuration is summarized as follows: 1) Overall electric efficiency, Jenbacher and diesel engines, based on gasifier fuel production (syngas and pyrolysis liquids) is 35.2% LHV, 2) Overall cogenerating efficiency (electricity plus steam), based on gasifier fuel production (syngas and pyrolysis liquids) is 54.8% LHV, 3) Overall electric efficiency, Jenbacher and diesel engines, based on coal input, is 29.6% LHV, and 4) Overall cogenerating efficiency, electricity plus steam, based on coal input is 46.0%. This project is estimated to have a Bare Erected Cost (BEC) of $\$$ 33.4 million and a Total Plant Cost (TPC) of $\$$ 45.7 million. Based on the original scope, sending both the clean syngas and the oils and tars to the existing diesel engine, the BEC and TPC values would have been $\$$ 23.3 million and $\$$ 32.1 million, respectively. A variable Cost of Electricity (COE) is calculated to reflect only those costs that will be incurred by incremental operation of the system for the HMI gasifier/Jenbacher engine combination. Operation of the diesel engine is determined separately. The variable COE values are: Case 1: 100% Usibelli Coal: (a) HMI gasifier/Jenbacher Engines -- 8.3 cents/kWh; (b) Diesel Engine -- 20.2 cents/kWh, and Case 2: 80% Usibelli Coal + 20% wood chips (proportion based on Btu input, LHV basis): (a) HMI Gasifier/Jenbacher -- 13.7 cents/kWh; (b) Diesel Engine -- 20.2 cents/kWh. The incremental cost of operating the gasifier/Jenbacher system increases with co-firing of wood chips due to the high cost of this material, over five times as costly as Usibelli coal delivered to the Atkinson Power building. The diesel cost is constant as the oils and tars are priced at the same value as the ULSD for the purposes of fueling the diesel engine. Section 8 of this report provides details of the O&M costs. The overall power system is configured to be modular and scalable to provide a wide range of generating capacity using the same components. This allows for reduction in cost, risk, schedule time to engineer and construct, and provides some degree of repeatability for air permitting.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗
DOE OSTI2022

Impact of cyber attacks on distributed compressive sensing based state estimation in power distribution grids

Modern power distribution grids suffer from multiple vulnerabilities due to the tight integration between the physical system and the cyber infrastructure. Sophisticated and malicious cyber attacks continue to adversely impact the grid operation leading to performance degradation, service interruption, and grid failure. State estimation plays an essential role in grid monitoring and advancing cyber-attack situational awareness. In this regard, this paper first proposes a distributed compressive sensing (CS) state estimation approach for an unobservable distribution grid. Further, the proposed distributed CS approach divides the distribution grid into sub-areas to perform local state estimation. Then an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) based iterative information exchange among neighboring areas is employed to complete the estimation process. In this estimation process, the impact of loss of measurement data, false data injection (FDI), replay, and neighborhood cyber-attacks is analyzed. Extensive simulations are performed on the IEEE 37-bus and IEEE 123-bus standard networks to demonstrate the algorithm’s robustness to the aforementioned cyber-attacks. A quantitative analysis of computational complexity and simulation time of the distributed CS based approach is also presented.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Occupant-driven end use load models for demand response and flexibility service participation of residential grid-interactive buildings

As demand response becomes increasingly used as a tool to support improved grid flexibility, it is important to consider that there are many potential types of energy end uses that may be used to support such flexibility. Residential appliances, often accounting for 30 % or more of residential energy use, are a currently untapped source of demand flexibility, particularly when aggregated together across homes. To date there has been very limited analysis of residential appliances for use as grid-interactive loads. As such, this research uses disaggregated energy end use data for 564 households, to model the electricity demand flexibility potential of the use of residential dishwashers, clothes washers, clothes dryers, ovens, and ranges (oven + stovetop) on both weekdays and weekends. This includes both at the building level, as well as aggregated to the grid level, specifically the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region. This study was divided into two parts. Part 1 focuses on determining appliance-level loads, and Part 2, which involves aggregation to the grid. Findings suggest that among the studied appliances, clothes dryers provide the greatest demand reduction potential for most times of the day, followed by dishwashers and clothes washers. The maximum potential reduction for clothes dryers is found to be approximately at 11:00 a.m. and this potential sustains throughout most of the daytime period. When considering the willingness of households to participate, based on a survey of households in the Midwest region, clothes dryers still have the most potential for demand reduction. The availability of appliances for load modulation on weekdays and weekends indicates similar load reduction potential for all appliances. Overall, the results of this study suggest that there is an opportunity for shifting appliance usage to optimize grid efficiency and enhance demand response strategies.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Demand-Side Resource Opportunity for Deep Grid Decarbonization

Technological innovations are creating a larger role for demand-side resources in electric grids. The rise of demand-side resources is occurring alongside the efforts to decarbonize grids. The confluence of these two trends has motivated research on the role of demand-side resources in grid decarbonization. Here, we synthesize the demand-side resource literature to develop a coherent and realistic vision for that role. We find that demand-side resources can supplement supply-side approaches to decarbonize grids more quickly and cost effectively. The role of demand-side resources is secondary to that of supply-side resources, and a critical analysis of tradeoffs is required whenever demand-side solutions substitute for supply-side solutions. Nonetheless, our review suggests that demand-side solutions can play a meaningful role, providing around 10%-30% of the resources required for deep decarbonization in domains such as energy, peak capacity, and deployed solar capacity. However, demand-side resources remain underutilized due to several solvable barriers. The urgency imposed by climate change requires that these barriers be addressed to fully realize the demand-side resource opportunity.

decarbonization↗
DOE OSTI2024

Modelling and analysis of nuclear reactor system coupled with a liquid metal battery

Traditionally, nuclear power plants in the U.S. provide baseload power to the power grid because they have less flexibility for ramping their output power than natural gas peaking plants. However, achieving climate goals to reduce the consumption of fossil‐based natural gas places pressure on nuclear power plants and other power generators to ramp up their power output to balance grid generation with demand. This paper presents the modelling and performance analysis of a nuclear reactor system (NRS) coupled to a liquid‐metal battery (LMB) to improve its dynamic response and enable its black start capability. The NRS and LMB thermal behaviour are modelled in Dymola, while the electrical dynamics of the LMB and power grid are modelled in RTDS‐RSCAD. Both simulation platforms are coupled and share their thermal and electrical data using a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) communication protocol. The dynamic performance of the NRS‐LMB integration is tested on the IEEE 9 bus, which demonstrates its ability to respond and provide frequency and voltage regulation. The black start capability of the NRS‐LMB is also evaluated by simulating a grid outage and using the LMB to supply the auxiliary loads required to bring the NRS back online as soon as possible. The results show that coupling an NRS to an LMB improves the system dynamic performance and enables it to black start after being disconnected from the grid for several days.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Expert Elicitation on Wind Farm Control

Wind farm control is an active and growing field of research in which the control actions of individual turbines in a farm are coordinated, accounting for inter-turbine aerodynamic interaction, to improve the overall performance of the wind farm and to reduce costs. The primary objectives of wind farm control include increasing power production, reducing turbine loads, and providing electricity grid support services. Additional objectives include improving reliability or reducing external impacts to the environment and communities. In 2019, a European research project (FarmConners) was started with the main goal of providing an overview of the state-of-the-art in wind farm control, identifying consensus of research findings, data sets, and best practices, providing a summary of the main research challenges, and establishing a roadmap on how to address these challenges. Complementary to the FarmConners project, an IEA Wind Topical Expert Meeting (TEM) and two rounds of surveys among experts were performed. From these events we can clearly identify an interest in more public validation campaigns. Additionally, a deeper understanding of the mechanical loads and the uncertainties concerning the effectiveness of wind farm control are considered two major research gaps.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

A Data-driven Control Method for Operating the Commercial HVAC Load as a Virtual Battery

Building loads have a great potential to provide ancillary services because of its large power consumption. In order to quantify their flexibility, methods of modeling building loads as virtual battery (VB) have been proposed. The VB model provides an effective way to coordinate building loads and energy storage systems together when providing service to grid. However, after grid send a power signal to VB, the control strategy has not been fully studied to let building consumes this desired amount of power yet. This paper introduces a method to control commercial heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. First, the thermal model of commercial building is introduced. We then used several data-driven models to approximate this thermal dynamic and the operation of different HVAC components. Base on these data-driven models, we developed a centralized control algorithm to utilize HVAC system consuming the desired amount of power. Finally, we modeled a realistic commercial building in EnergyPlus to test the performance of this proposed control algorithm

Wang, Jiyu↗
DOE OSTI2024

Hardware-in-the-Loop Evaluation for Potential High Limit Estimation-Based PV Plant Active Control

This paper validates the efficacy of an artificial intelligence (AI)-based photovoltaic (PV) plant control and optimization approach in enabling PV plants as accountable grid reliability service providers. The validation is performed in a realistic laboratory controller-hardware-in-the-loop environment, leveraging accurate PV plant modeling and standard industrial communication protocols. Through simulations that account for diverse weather conditions and active control scenarios, the results highlight the superior performance of the AI-based solution in comparison to a state-of-the-art reference-control grouping-based approach. Such a finding contributes to mitigating the risk of overcurtailment and uninstructed deviations of active PV plant controls, and offers practical guidance for its field deployment. Furthermore, it establishes a standardized testing framework for comparing various PV active control strategies.

hardware-in-the-loop↗
DOE OSTI2025

Electric Grid Reliability in an Era of Unprecedented Uncertainty: A Review of Advances in Electric Sector Resource Adequacy Assessment and Planning

Recent changes to the principal causes of energy shortage events on the electric grid have necessitated are thinking of paradigms for resource adequacy (RA) assessment and the related topic of procurement of a reliable portfolio. Prior studies have laid out elements of a modern paradigm for these planning activities, but there does not exist a comprehensive overview of the topic spanning academic and gray literature, and the relationship of these suggested paradigms to methods used in industry has also not been surveyed. In this paper we review recent literature establishing best practices for RA assessment and reliable portfolio procurement, and survey current practices used in industry in relation to these best practices. We establish seven key best practices for RA assessment, cover a modern methodology for capacity accreditation, and find that industry practices are not far behind the identified best practices, though some key gaps remain. We also present a suggested agenda for both academic research on the topic and opportunities for advancement in the industry.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗