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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 541 records · Page 30
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

The Cost of Floating Offshore Wind Energy in California Between 2019 and 2032

California’s energy planning is centered around meeting the emissions reduction and renewable energy requirements of Senate Bill 350 by 2030. However, state power system planning is expected to eventually address California’s requirement to achieve 100% of total retail electricity sales from renewable energy and zero-carbon resources by 2045, as mandated by Senate Bill 100. To comply with these directives, California needs to investigate the further development of energy efficiency, storage, and a diverse range of renewable energy, zero-carbon emission, and transmission resources, including offshore wind. Wind resources off the coast of California have the potential to generate a significant portion of the state’s electric energy as it moves toward a zero-carbon economy and can help diversify its energy mix. Floating offshore wind technology, which is suitable for the deep waters along the California coast, is currently in a precommercial phase, with approximately 84 megawatts (MW) installed worldwide at the end of 2019. Globally there are over 7,000 MW in planning and permitting phases of development, with the first commercial-scale projects expected to be operational in 2024. This study provides site-specific cost and performance data for floating offshore wind to inform California’s long-term energy planning. The identification of new resources to meet California’s policy goals at least cost is part of the Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) process, which is coordinated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). In 2019–2020 IRP modeling, offshore wind was included for the first time as a candidate resource in some sensitivity cases (CPUC 2019). The data and information presented in this report can be used to update offshore wind inputs in future IRP cycles. The authors conducted a geospatial cost analysis over portions of the offshore wind resource area of California. The analyzed spatial domain includes sites with a mean wind speed of at least 7 meters per second and water depths between 40 meters (m) and 1,300 m. Costs and energy production vary across this analysis domain. We calculated these parameters on a grid layout with over 750 sites, with each site representing a 1,000-MW commercial offshore wind power plant. Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) was calculated at each site over the analysis domain. The resulting variation in LCOE across the analysis domain is illustrated through heat maps in this report. Five study areas were selected within the analysis domain where more detailed cost analysis was conducted and cost parameters, such as annual energy production, capital cost expenditures (CapEx), operational cost expenditures (OpEx), and net capacity factors are reported. These five study areas include Morro Bay, Diablo Canyon, Humboldt, Cape Mendocino and Del Norte.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Parameterization of arctic hydrometeor physics using new precipitation measurement technologies: Final Report

Predictions of precipitation are highly sensitive to the accuracy of parameterized growth and sedimentation processes, especially in remote regions such as the Arctic where observations are scarce. The goal of this study was to combine measurements of meteorological conditions and retrievals from passive and active remote sensors to provide refined parameterizations of precipitation properties and processes with a particular focus on the Arctic. To accomplish the project goals, new instrumentation was used from the Oliktok Point Mobile Facility and the Utqiagvik (Barrow) North Slope of Alaska ARM site focusing in particular on Multi-Angle Snowflake Camera (MASC) data. The MASC is the first device able to automatically photograph precipitation particles in free-fall from multiple angles while simultaneously measuring their fall speed. The MASC installed at the ARM Oliktok Point and Utqiagvik facilities was used to examine the nature of Arctic precipitation, taking particular advantage of the unique suite of precipitation, meteorological, and remote sensing instrumentation that is available at the high latitude sites. Combined with radiometer data we were able to explore the relationship between precipitation particle characteristics and the clouds where the snow is created. Ground-based wind measurements provided detailed data on turbulence. Further theoretical work explored the physical mechanisms controlling precipitation size distributions, the physics determining hydrometeor fallspeed, and the existence of general solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations for falling particles. Outreach work introduced hydrometeor classification to classrooms across the United States.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

An Updated Review of Hypotheses Regarding Bat Attraction to Wind Turbines

Patterns of bat activity and mortalities at wind energy facilities suggest that bats are attracted to wind turbines based on bat behavioral responses to wind turbines. For example, current monitoring efforts suggest that bat activity increases post-wind turbine construction, with bats making multiple passes near wind turbines. We separated the attraction hypothesis into five previously proposed explanations of bat interactions at or near wind turbines, including attraction based on noise, roost sites, foraging and water, mating behavior, and lights, and one new hypothesis regarding olfaction, and provide a state of the knowledge in 2022. Our review indicates that future research should prioritize attraction based on social behaviors, such as mating and scent-marking, as this aspect of the attraction hypothesis has many postulates and remains the most unclear. Relatively more data regarding attraction to wind turbines based on lighting and noise emission exist, and these data indicate that these are unlikely attractants. Analyzing attraction at the species-level should be prioritized because of differences in foraging, flight, and social behavior among bat species. Lastly, research assessing bat attraction at various scales, such as the turbine or facility scale, is lacking, which could provide important insights for both wind turbine siting decisions and bat mortality minimization strategies. Identifying the causes of bat interactions with wind turbines is critical for developing effective impact minimization strategies.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Definition of the IEA Wind 22-Megawatt Offshore Reference Wind Turbine

This technical report describes the design of a new 22 Megawatt reference wind turbine (RWT). The turbine model was designed collaboratively by two teams at the Denmark Technical University and at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory within the International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind Technology Commercialization Programme (TCP) Task 55 on Reference Wind Turbines and Farms. RWTs serve an important purpose in the wind energy community, since they provide openly available data for models representative of current wind turbine technology, which can be used by practitioners for a variety of modeling purposes, ranging from aerodynamic, structural, and aeroelastic turbine modeling to wind farm flow modeling, across a range of fidelities. The IEA 22 RWT aims to model machines with projected installation in the 2025-2030 time frame. The turbine has a rotor diameter of 284 meters and a hub height of 170 meters. It is a class 1-B machine with a rotor specific power nearing 350 W m -2 and it is mounted on either a fixed-bottom offshore foundation or a semi-submersible floating platform.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

International Energy Agency 22 MW Offshore Reference Wind Turbine

The presentation will be used in a public webinar to introduce the newly developed 22 megawatt offshore reference wind turbine designed within the International Energy Agency Wind Technology Commercialization Programme Task 55 Reference Wind Turbines and Plants. The turbine was designed collaboratively by two teams at the Denmark Technical University and at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Reference turbines serve an important purpose in the wind energy community, since they provide openly available data for models representative of current wind turbine technology, which can be used by practitioners for a variety of modeling purposes, ranging from aerodynamic, structural, and aeroelastic turbine modeling to wind farm flow modeling, across a range of fidelities. The IEA 22 RWT aims to model machines with projected installation in the 2025-2030 time frame. The turbine has a rotor diameter of 284 meters and a hub height of 170 meters. It is a class 1-B machine with a rotor specific power nearing 350 W m-2 and it is mounted on either a fixed-bottom offshore foundation or a semi-submersible floating platform.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

The effect of wind direction shear on turbine performance in a wind farm in central Iowa

Abstract. Numerous studies have shown that atmospheric conditions affect wind turbine performance; however, some findings have exposed conflicting results for different locations and diverse analysis methodologies. In this study, we explore how the change in wind direction with height (direction wind shear), a site-differing factor between conflicting studies, and speed shear affect wind turbine performance. We utilized lidar and turbine data collected from the 2013 Crop Wind Energy eXperiment (CWEX) project between June and September in a wind farm in north-central Iowa. Wind direction and speed shear were found to follow a diurnal cycle; however, they evolved differently with increasing wind speeds. Using a combination of speed and direction shear values, we found large direction and small speed shear to result in underperformance. We further analyzed the effects of wind veering on turbine performance for specific values of speed shear and found detrimental conditions on the order of 10 % for wind speed regimes predominantly located in the middle of the power curve. Focusing on a time period of ramping electricity demand (06:00–09:00 LT – local time) exposed the fact that large direction shear occurred during this time and undermined turbine performance by more than 10 %. A predominance of clockwise direction shear (wind veering) cases compared to counterclockwise (wind backing) was also observed throughout the campaign. Moreover, large veering was found to have greater detrimental effects on turbine performance compared to small backing values. This study shows that changes in wind direction with height should be considered when analyzing turbine performance.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Data and code repository for "How do the weather regimes drive wind speed and power production at the sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales over the CONUS?"

There has been an increasing need for forecasting power generation at the sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales to support the operation, management, and planning of the wind-energy system. At the S2S timescales, atmospheric variability is largely related to recurrent and persistent weather patterns, referred to as weather regimes (WRs). In the study "How do the weather regimes drive wind speed and power production at the sub-seasonal to seasonal timescales over the CONUS?", we identify four WRs that influence wind resources over North America using a self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm. These WRs are responsible for large-scale wind and power production anomalies over the CONUS at the S2S timescales. The WR-based reconstruction explains up to 50% of the monthly variance of power production over the western United States, and the explanatory power generally increases with the increase of timescales. The identified relationship between WRs and power production reveals the potential and limitations of the regional WR-based wind resource assessment over different regions of the CONUS across multiple timescales. This repository includes all the data and codes we use for analyses in this study. Users may use them to reproduce the results of this study on their end.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Wind Energy: Bans or Moratoriums (2022)

This dataset identifies counties and municipalities that had a wind energy ban or moratorium as of April 2022. A TIF data file and a PNG map of the data are provided, showing areas where wind energy bans or moratoriums exist across the contiguous United States. For further details and citation, please refer to the publication linked below: Lopez, Anthony, Pavlo Pinchuk, Michael Gleason, Wesley Cole, Trieu Mai, Travis Williams, Owen Roberts, Marie Rivers, Mike Bannister, Sophie-Min Thomson, Gabe Zuckerman, and Brian Sergi. 2024. Solar Photovoltaics and Land-Based Wind Technical Potential and Supply Curves for the Contiguous United States: 2023 Edition. Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. NREL/TP-6A20-87843.

Array↗
DOE OSTI2025

Second-generation downscaled earth system model data using generative machine learning

The second-generation Sup3rCC dataset provides high-resolution meteorological data generated through the downscaling of multiple earth system models (ESMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). This downscaling is performed through application of a generative machine learning approach called Super-Resolution for Renewable Resource Data (sup3r). This dataset builds on the first-generation Sup3rCC data by applying improved bias correction methods and adding downscaled precipitation to the output variables. As with the first Sup3rCC version, the data still include temperature, wind speed and direction at multiple heights, pressure, three components of downwelling solar radiation, and relative humidity—all at 4-kilometer (km) hourly resolution over the contiguous United States. This is a 25x spatial enhancement and 24x temporal enhancement of the source 100-km daily-average ESM data. This extension of the Sup3rCC dataset includes data from six ESMs from two shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) totaling 400 years of data with multiple future projections of changing meteorological conditions. The scenario selection was based on a structured evaluation of historical ESM skill and comprehensive representation of possible trajectories of future climate change in temperature, humidity, precipitation, solar irradiance, and near-surface wind speeds. The inclusion of multiple future projections is intended to enable users to assess key drivers of un 36 certainty and variability. All data are double-bias corrected, resulting in a product that can be used out-of-the-box for energy system analysis with minimal historical bias. The potential applications of Sup3rCC data extend to various topics in renewable energy resource assessment, energy systems modeling, and grid resilience studies. High-resolution future meteorological projections are critical for evaluating the effects of changing meteorological conditions on renewable energy generation, energy demand, and for optimizing energy storage and grid infrastructure. The 4-km hourly resolution of the downscaled data enables understanding of spatial and temporal variability at the scales necessary for energy system operational planning. In addition, the dataset can support risk assessments by providing detailed information on possible future extreme weather events and long-term meteorological variability at scales relevant to energy infrastructure. By offering an enhanced representation of possible future meteorological conditions, the second-generation Sup3rCC dataset enables more precise modeling of energy resilience and adaptation strategies in response to changing meteorological conditions.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗