Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “grid management”

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 577 records · Page 32

An Experimental Framework for Executing Applications in Dynamic Grid Environments

The Grid opens up opportunities for resource-starved scientists and engineers to harness highly distributed computing resources. A number of Grid middleware projects are currently available to support the simultaneous exploitation of heterogeneous resources distributed in different administrative domains. However, efficient job submission and management continue being far from accessible to ordinary scientists and engineers due to the dynamic and complex nature of the Grid. This report describes a new Globus framework that allows an easier and more efficient execution of jobs in a 'submit and forget' fashion. Adaptation to dynamic Grid conditions is achieved by supporting automatic application migration following performance degradation, 'better' resource discovery, requirement change, owner decision or remote resource failure. The report also includes experimental results of the behavior of our framework on the TRGP testbed.

Huedo, Eduardo↗

Human Systems Risk Network - A Ranking Analysis of Risks

INTRODUCTION The Human Systems Risk Board (HSRB) is responsible for understanding, managing, and mitigating the risks associated with spaceflight. For a particular mission, the HSRB assigns each human system risk a rating on a 5x5 grid assessing its likelihood and consequence, which is ultimately used to compare and rank the risks. The HSRB approaches risk management by primarily establishing the context of each human system risk individually with the understanding that mitigating one risk might affect the likelihood, consequence, and mitigation approaches of another. To support this effort the HSRB, subject matter experts, and risk custodian teams created directed acyclic graphs (DAG), often called a causal graph, for the twenty-nine risks. In this presentation, we propose a new ranking algorithm for the risks which includes the downstream influence of each risk according to the information in the DAGs and provide an application of graph theoretic tools. METHODS In 2014, Mindock and Klaus proposed a taxonomy for human system risk influences which we have adopted to categorize the nodes in each DAG. Analyzing the nodes that correspond to the risks in this taxonomy allows us to analyze and understand how each risk influences the others. We construct an auxiliary network, which we call the Primary Risk Network (PRN), where the nodes are the twenty-nine space flight risks and, a directed edge connects Risk A to Risk B if Risk A has some influence on the likelihood or consequence of Risk B as described in the DAGS. We perform a variety of graph theoretic ranking methods on the nodes (or risks) in the PRN, including Katz centrality. RESULTS We rank the nodes in the PRN using the Katz centrality score. The ten risks with the highest score are pictured in Figure 1, colored (light to dark) according to their score. We analyze other centrality measures like betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and the Estrada index, and provide the meaning of the corresponding rankings in terms of the risks. Future work includes analyzing the other categories in the taxonomy defined by Mindock and Klaus [1]. For example, we are interested in analyzing the nodes that are labeled as countermeasures or capabilities and perform similar analysis to measure their effect on certain medical conditions.

dag↗

Study of eVTOL Charging Impact on Airport Electrical Grids

Growth in commercial air traffic has increased the aviation industry's contribution to global emissions. Aircraft electrification can reduce greenhouse gas emissions along with being efficient and reliable. Advanced air mobility introduces the idea of an advanced and more efficient air transportation system. Electric and hybrid aircraft designs, such as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL), are being considered for a number of applications, such as urban air mobility, cargo delivery, and medical emergencies. Although the electrification of aircraft provides environmental benefits, their charging needs will place significant demand on the electrical grid. This work presents a grid impact study and infrastructure upgrade requirements analysis of eVTOL charging on a realistic distribution grid through power flow simulation analysis. The case study results show that the eVTOL charging can lead to power quality issues, such as undervoltage and equipment capacity overloading. Grid infrastructure, such as lines and transformers, would need to be upgraded, and voltage management strategies would need to be deployed to accommodate eVTOL charging at an existing airport.

advanced air mobility (AAM)↗

Guide to the Distributed Energy Resource Risk Management Framework

The emergence of distributed energy resources (DERs) has transformed the electric power sector and will likely have even more profound impacts on the future evolution of the United States energy sector as it modernizes and becomes more reliant upon complex informatics programming and systems to ensure that our power grid remains safe from malicious interference. To mitigate risks associated with the increased and diversified use of DERs, the Distributed Energy Resource Cybersecurity Framework (DER-CF) was developed in 2019. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory extended the scope of the DER-CF to include the RMF. To address the challenges faced by federal energy managers and energy system stakeholders in applying the RMF to DER systems, the Distributed Energy Resource Risk Manager (DER-RM) is a six-step process to proactively manage cybersecurity risk in a methodical manner. The DER-RM is independent of the DER-CF's existing assessment, allowing users to focus specifically on the RMF steps. The tools are targeted to different processes - DER-CF enables organizations to perform self-assessments to improve their cybersecurity posture, while DER-RM assists organizations in achieving compliance with specific requirements. This document provides an overview of the DER-RM. The RMF process outlined in this report serves as a guide to diagnose information and operational system threats, gather required materials to comply with industry standards, and document plans for achieving Authority to Operate. Using the DER-RM, federal agencies and other organizations can easily and intuitively follow the RMF process, manage the risks to their grid-edge infrastructure through the integration of their on-site DERs, and comply with appropriate requirements.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

A two-stage service restoration method for electric power distribution systems

Improving the reliability of power distribution systems is critically important for both utilities and customers. This calls for an efficient service restoration module within a distribution management system to support the implementation of self-healing smart grid networks. Although the emerging smart grid technologies, including distributed generators (DGs) and remote-controlled switches, enhance the self-healing capability and allow faster recovery, they still pose additional complexity to the service restoration problem, especially under cold load pickup (CLPU) conditions. Herein, a novel two-stage restoration framework is proposed to generate a restoration solutions with a sequence of control actions. The first stage generates a restoration plan that supports both the traditional service restoration using feeder reconfiguration and the grid-forming DG-assisted intentional islanding methods. The second stage generates an optimal sequence of switching operations to bring the outaged system quickly to the final restored configuration. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear program that incorporates system connectivity, operating constraints, and the CLPU models. It is demonstrated that on using a multi-feeder test case, the proposed framework is effective in utilizing all available resources to quickly restore the service and generate an optimal sequence of switching actions to be used by the operator to reach the desired optimal configuration.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Ensemble Learning, Prediction and Li-Ion Cell Charging Cycle Divergence

In recent years, the pervasive use of lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries in applications such as cell phones, laptop computers, electric vehicles, and grid energy storage systems has prompted the development of specialized battery management systems (BMS). The primary goal of a BMS is to maintain a reliable and safe battery power source while maximizing the calendar life and performance of the cells. To maintain safe operation, a BMS should be programmed to minimize degradation and prevent damage to a Li-ion cell, which can lead to thermal runaway. Cell damage can occur over time if a BMS is not properly configured to avoid overcharging and discharging. To prevent cell damage, efficient and accurate cell charging cycle characteristics algorithms must be employed. In this paper, computationally efficient and accurate ensemble learning algorithms capable of detecting Li-ion cell charging irregularities are described. Additionally, it is shown using machine and deep learning that it is possible to accurately and efficiently detect when a cell has experienced thermal and electrical stress due to cell overcharging by measuring charging cycle divergence.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Occupant-Centric Demand Response for Thermostatically-Controlled Home Loads

Efficiently managing energy usage to balance supply and demand on the electric grid is crucial, especially with the widespread deployment of distributed variable renewable electricity generation. This paper introduces two duty-cycle control methods for heating systems, adjusting thermostat setpoints to limit and shift electricity demand. The control approaches employ innovative techniques, such as adaptive duty cycling, to prioritize household thermal comfort while reducing peak demand. These control methods can respond to signals from the electric grid, including demand targets and time-of-use tariffs, and were tested physically on an electric furnace and heat pump in a test home during winter conditions in 2021 and 2022. The results are given as average demand reductions and energy use impacts with respect to the average indoor-outdoor temperature difference during the control period. For heat pumps, demand limiting control reduced power by 18.5% and 23.3% for indoor-outdoor temperature differences of 30°F and 40°F. Preheating-based demand shifting achieved reductions of 34.8% and 33.2% for the same temperature differences. Electric furnace tests showed demand reductions of 33.8% and 25.3% for demand limiting, and 56.1% and 45.7% for preheating-based demand shifting. These findings highlight the potential for innovative control methods to enhance grid efficiency and reduce energy consumption.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

Enabling Secure and Resilient XFC: A Software/Hardware-Security Co-Design Approach

Extremely fast charging (XFC) has the potential to reduce the charging time of battery electric vehicles (BEV) to be equivalent to the filling time of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV), thus eliminating one of the few advantages ICEV still poses for light- and heavy-duty vehicles. Enabling XFC will, however, require coordination and cooperation between the grid, charging stations, and the vehicles themselves, which leads to an inevitable increase in the attack surface for all systems combined. In securing the overall system, we must not only embrace traditional cybersecurity, which is chiefly concerned with communications and the operation of digital systems, but also cyber-physical systems security as the proper operation of XFC is critically dependent on systems’ abilities to know about (sense) and interact with (actuate) the physical world. The project team consists of academic and industry researchers with backgrounds in cybersecurity, cyber-physical systems security, learning in adversarial environments, transportation security, grid security and resilience, wireless power transfer, converter design, and battery management systems.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

An Agent-Based Interface to Terrestrial Ecological Forecasting

The latest generation of NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites has brought a new dimension to continuous monitoring of the living part of the Earth System, the biosphere. EOS data can now provide weekly global measures of vegetation productivity and ocean chlorophyll, and many related biophysical factors such as land cover changes or snowmelt rates. However, the highest economic value would come from forecasting impending conditions of the biosphere, to allow decision makers to mitigate dangers or exploit positive trends. NASA's strategic plan for the Earth Science Enterprise i d e n a s ecological forecasting as a focus for research. Ecological forecasting predicts the effects of changes in the physical, chemical and biological environment on ecosystem activity. Possible applications of such a system include predicting shortfalls or bumper crops of agricultural production, populations of threatened or invasive species or wildfire danger in time to allow improves preparation and logistical efficiency. Petabytes of remote sensing data are now available to help measure, understand and forecast changes in the Earth system, but using these data effectively can be surprisingly hard. The volume and variety of data files and formats are daunting. Simple data management activities, such as locating and transferring files, changing file formats, gridding point data, and scaling and reprojecting gridded data, can consume far more personnel time and resources than the actual data analysis. Some scientists commit to a particular data source or resolution just because using anything different would be more effort that it's worth. Better tools can help, but most of the tools developed to date are little more than shell scripts; they lack the flexibility to meet the diverse needs of users and are difficult to extend to handle changes in available data sources.

Golden, Keith↗

Toward Improved Land Surface Initialization in Support of Regional WRF Forecasts at the Kenya Meteorological Service (KMS)

Flooding and drought are two key forecasting challenges for the Kenya Meteorological Service (KMS). Atmospheric processes leading to excessive precipitation and/or prolonged drought can be quite sensitive to the state of the land surface, which interacts with the planetary boundary layer (PBL) of the atmosphere providing a source of heat and moisture. The development and evolution of precipitation systems are affected by heat and moisture fluxes from the land surface, particularly within weakly-sheared environments such as in the tropics and sub-tropics. These heat and moisture fluxes during the day can be strongly influenced by land cover, vegetation, and soil moisture content. Therefore, it is important to represent the land surface state as accurately as possible in land surface and numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Enhanced regional modeling capabilities have the potential to improve forecast guidance in support of daily operations and high-impact weather over eastern Africa. KMS currently runs a configuration of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) NWP model in real time to support its daily forecasting operations, making use of the NOAA/National Weather Service (NWS) Science and Training Resource Center's Environmental Modeling System (EMS) to manage and produce the KMS-WRF runs on a regional grid over eastern Africa. Two organizations at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, SERVIR and the Shortterm Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center, have established a working partnership with KMS for enhancing its regional modeling capabilities through new datasets and tools. To accomplish this goal, SPoRT and SERVIR is providing enhanced, experimental land surface initialization datasets and model verification capabilities to KMS as part of this collaboration. To produce a land-surface initialization more consistent with the resolution of the KMS-WRF runs, the NASA Land Information System (LIS) is run at a comparable resolution to provide real-time, daily soil initialization data in place of data interpolated from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) model soil moisture and temperature fields. Additionally, realtime green vegetation fraction (GVF) data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi- NPP) satellite will be incorporated into the KMS-WRF runs, once it becomes publicly available from the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS). Finally, model verification capabilities will be transitioned to KMS using the Model Evaluation Tools (MET; Brown et al. 2009) package in conjunction with a dynamic scripting package developed by SPoRT (Zavodsky et al. 2014), to help quantify possible improvements in simulated temperature, moisture and precipitation resulting from the experimental land surface initialization. Furthermore, the transition of these MET tools will enable KMS to monitor model forecast accuracy in near real time. This paper presents preliminary efforts to improve land surface model initialization over eastern Africa in support of operations at KMS. The remainder of this extended abstract is organized as follows: The collaborating organizations involved in the project are described in Section 2; background information on LIS and the configuration for eastern Africa is presented in Section 3; the WRF configuration used in this modeling experiment is described in Section 4; sample experimental WRF output with and without LIS initialization data are given in Section 5; a summary is given in Section 6 followed by acknowledgements and references.

Case, Johnathan L.↗

Xstar Atomic Database: The PyXstar Package

We present a progress report on the development of PyXstar, a Python package to manage the data (input, output, intermediate, atomic database, and model-grids) associated with the XSTAR code for treating photoionized and collisionally ionized plasmas. The PyXstar modular structure and database retrieval scheme are described, and its functionality is illustrated with Python functions and classes for performing database searches. We briefly compare PyXstar with two other Python spectrum modeling tools: PyNeb and PyAtomDB.

Claudio Mendoza↗

Remote Hardware-in-the-Loop Approach for Microgrid Controller Evaluation: Preprint

Utilities have been installing microgrids due to the advancements in the distributed energy resources technologies. Microgrids also improve the resiliency of the system due to their capability to isolate themselves from the grid and run in islanded mode of operation. Microgrid controllers are management systems that can run the microgrids under varied operating condition and enable the smooth operation of microgrids under various system conditions. It is of high value to de-risk the installation of such controllers. Hardware-in-the-loop evaluation is used by controller developers and utilities to evaluate the controllers under stressful conditions to understand the performance and to understand the necessary improvements to the microgrid controller. In this research work, the team has leveraged the existing infrastructure of real-time simulation at the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) and the capability of the microgrid controller to control assets over the Internet Protocol (IP) to evaluate a university developed microgrid controller in an efficient and cost-effective manner. The full paper will provide the complete setup, the experimental use cases and the results. In this abstract, one use case will be expalined, and the results from the use case is provided.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Best Practices for Smart Grid-Interactive Efficient Building Ready Performance Contracts

Grid-interactive efficient building (GEB) measures reduce costs and optimize energy use for additional grid services by coordinating building energy loads and providing continuous demand management. Incorporating GEB energy conservation measures (ECMs) in performance contracts is reliant upon multiple factors. These factors include site selection with utility tariffs and incentives favorable to GEB, the identification of GEB as a priority in the initial stages of the contracting process, integration of GEB within comprehensive performance contracts with multiple other ECMs, and careful consideration of GEB measurement and verification (M&V) for energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) and performance assurance for utility energy service contracts (UESCs).

building energy loads↗

Cost-optimized energy storage operation for a grid-connected solar PV system at community and individual scales

This study provides a comparative analysis of grid-connected PV-integrated battery storage at individual and community scales. The paper addresses the challenge of managing energy demand-generation mismatch by using a battery energy storage optimization algorithm, which minimizes operational costs while accounting for battery degradation. Also, this work introduces a broader evaluation basis that includes seasonal variability, grid exchange smoothness, and scalability across different battery capacities. Results show that community-scale storage more effectively dampens grid exchange power fluctuations and reduces system costs, particularly with moderate price differences between electricity buying and selling prices and low battery capacities. The paper also analyzes the impacts of static control versus cost-optimized battery system management. Here, it is shown that the gap in system costs between the cost-optimized and static control scenarios widens as the price difference increases.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Thermal management of a high temperature sodium sulphur battery stack

The sodium sulfur battery is an advanced secondary battery with high potential for grid-level storage due to their high energy density, low cost of the reactants, and high open-circuit voltage. However, as the operating temperature of the battery is high (about 300 °C), effective thermal management is required to prevent thermal runaway under high current density operation. Here, to develop efficient thermal management strategies, a detailed, thermo-electrochemical, non-isothermal, distributed dynamic model of a sodium-sulfur battery stack is developed. Models of three thermal management strategies are developed and analyzed in this work: active cooling, passive cooling, and hybrid cooling. The active cooling strategy uses air as the cooling medium whereas, the passive cooling strategy uses a phase change material. In the hybrid cooling strategy, both active and passive cooling strategies are used. Due to the high operating temperature of the sodium sulfur batteries, the rejected heat can be utilized effectively and consequently a high variability in the heat rejection rate may not be acceptable. Performance of these strategies is analyzed under high current density operation by evaluating the variability in the cell temperature during charge/discharge cycles, temperature difference between the cells based on their locations, and variability in the heat rejection rate. The phase change-based hybrid thermal management strategy with an embedded controller maintained the temperature variation within ±/- 2.8 °C. Considering the tradeoff between the capital cost for PCM, fan power requirement, and variability in the heat rejection rate, the optimal quantity of the PCM and the maximum air velocity for the maximum current density of 260 mA/cm 2 (0.55 C-rate) were found be 0.74 g/Wh and 3 m/s, respectively.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Advanced Synchrophasor-based Application for Potential Distributed Energy Resources Management: Key Technology, Challenge and Vision

With an increasing number of distributed energy resources (DERs) integrating into the power system, the power grid is becoming more complex and uncertain. Owing to most of DERs are through grid-connected converters to integrate into the power system, the intermittent nature and resource-depended characteristic of the DERs are challenging their monitoring and control. Conventional synchronized measurement devices (SMDs) may be difficult to provide qualified data for DERs management for its accuracy and reporting-rate limitation. The monitoring systems developed basing on SMDs may be insufficient for depicting detailed dynamic manifestations of power systems with a high proportion integration of DERs. This paper shares some advanced synchrophasor-based applications developed in FNET/GridEye, which have a broad prospect for assisting system operator on the control and integration of the DERs.

Wang, Weikang↗

The Future of Renewable Energy Transmission: An Autonomous Energy Grid

The drastic price reduction in variable renewable energy, such as wind and solar, coupled with the ease of use of smart technologies at the consumer level, is driving dramatic changes to the power system that will significantly transform how power is made, delivered, and used. Distributed energy resources (DERs)—which can include solar photovoltaic (PV), fuel cells, microturbines, gensets, distributed energy storage (e.g., batteries, ice storage), and new loads (e.g., electric vehicles (EVs), light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, smart appliances, and electric heat pumps)—are being added to electric grids and causing bidirectional power flows and voltage fluctuations that can impact optimal control and system operation. Residential solar installations, customer battery systems, and EVs are all seeing rapid increases in deployments. With DER seeing such increased use, it is not unreasonable to imagine a residential electricity customer having at least five controllable DERs. In future electric grids, as more DERs are integrated, the number of active control points will be too much for current control approaches to effectively manage.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗

Data-Driven Clustering and Classification of Outage Patterns with Insights into their Links to Extreme Events

At a global level extreme events have increased in both scale and impact. These events have the potential to affect the electrical grid infrastructure and cause a wide range of outages, which can lead to a disruption in daily patterns, cost millions of dollars and also the loss of life. Currently, to track these outage events there have been various approaches developed ranging from regional to national level quantifications for what defines an outage. However, this variation in methods can potentially lead to subjective decision-making and a lack of proper management in relation to the event. While previous work has made strides in determining spatio-temporal patterns, minimal attention has been given to the type and number of outages an area may be exposed to. The differences in incurred cost and the overall severity of an event between a transformer box malfunction and a hurricane are drastic, and by finding historical signals, we can allow for more efficient management, potentially saving lives and millions of dollars. Here, we leverage unsupervised machine learning techniques to delineate outage patterns among 22 counties within the United States and find that there are clear, segregated clusters (0.93 silhouette) of data which are related by event behavior and underlying cause. This finding will allow for energy stakeholders, policy makers, and researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the extent and severity of historic events and to better prepare for electrical grid infrastructure planning and management.

Koob, Benjamin [ORNL]↗