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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 649 records · Page 36
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Clean Energy Integration in Natural Gas Compressor Station Operations

Integrating renewable energy into oil and gas operations could reduce emissions and maximize higher-value use of produced hydrocarbons. In this study, analysts from the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) evaluated clean power technologies for a natural gas compressor station in Texas, using NREL’s REopt tool. Different configurations of distributed energy resources were evaluated based on the technologies available and the load they can satisfy, available land, and hypothetical carbon pricing. The analysis is part of a collaborative program with industry to understand site-specific energy consumption and prices in the oil and gas supply chain and determine under what conditions clean energy options are economically attractive. This work was sponsored by a consortium including Kinder Morgan, Interstate Natural Gas Association of America Foundation, Extraction Oil & Gas, Baker Hughes, and ConocoPhillips.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2021

An Evaluation of the Spectral Irradiance Data from the NSRDB

A recent effort by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has led to a new radiative transfer model, the Fast All-sky Radiation Model for Solar applications with Narrowband Irradiances on Tilted surfaces (FARMS-NIT), to efficiently compute spectral irradiances in the plane-of-array (POA). This model has been implemented in the National Solar Radiation Data Base (NSRDB) to provide photovoltaic (PV) resource in both narrowband and broadband wavelengths. This study conducts an evaluation of the spectral irradiances from the PV Resource dataset using surface-based observations at NREL’s Solar Radiation Research Laboratory (SRRL) and University of Oregon (UO). The results demonstrate that the PV resource has a generally good agreement with the long-term observations in both clear-sky and cloudy-sky conditions. Further research is needed to reduce the overestimation of visible irradiances in clear sky conditions and underestimation of near-infrared irradiances in cloudy-sky conditions.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

PV Reference Cells for Outdoor Use: An Investigation of Calibration Factors

Reference cells are widely used in the photovoltaic (PV) industry to measure irradiance. For field applications and outdoor use, a variety of products are on the market, and they are often perceived as a low-cost alternative to thermopile radiometers. But reference cell characteristics differ substantially from the latter, therefore measurements made by one category of instrument cannot be substituted for or directly compared with the other. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Solar Radiation Research Laboratory is currently in a multiyear effort to develop guidance and recommendations for the design and use of outdoor reference cells, with a view to reducing inconsistencies and measurement uncertainty. The core of this effort is the long-term deployment of 39 units of 10 distinct types made by 6 manufacturers. This report compares the calibration factors provided by manufacturers - which most users rely upon - to those measured at a high level of accuracy by NREL's Cell Lab. It also reports on the application of the Broadband Outdoor Radiometer Calibration (BORCAL) method to reference cells. As a group, the factory calibrations for the crystalline silicon cells showed a small positive bias of +0.7%, with a tight distribution around this value. This is a very good result for the manufacturers. The two World Photovoltaic Scale cells constituted outliers, with a mean deviation of -0.8%, which is still within the reported uncertainty ranges. The data collected during the BORCAL procedures show a strong and systematic fluctuation of the apparent responsivity of the reference cells over the course of a day, which was anticipated. Consequently, the standard BORCAL R@45 calibration factors underestimated the reference cell responsivities by 1%-4%. An alternate responsivity indicator was developed, R'@30, incorporating adjustments for temperature response, spectral response, and directional response. This reduced the mean deviation to -0.4% compared to the Cell Lab. Further, two independent BORCAL sessions were able to produce the same values to within ±0.2%. This could be a viable approach for verifying reference cells using existing BORCAL infrastructure, for example, to evaluate their long-term stability. The daily profiles of responsivity obtained during the BORCAL sessions (provided in Appendix A) show clear patterns of differences between models, which provides evidence that their directional responses differ from each other; thus, two sensors that are calibrated correctly might give the same reading at 30° zenith angle but systematically different readings at 60°. The impact of these inconsistencies in field operation will be quantified using the long-term observations started in 2020.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Hydrogen Station Performance Evaluation (Final Report)

This project successfully designed and deployed a custom data acquisition system in 5 hydrogen fueling stations in California. The project also monitored and reported data to NREL on these stations over a 4 year period. These data have contributed to the large amount of information NREL has compiled on the current state of hydrogen fueling technology and infrastructure which has helped guide further R&D and other efficiency improvement efforts throughout the industry.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2021

Updated Oregon Floating Offshore Wind Cost Modeling [Slides]

The study provides heat maps showing updated estimates of the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for floating offshore wind energy off the coast of Oregon. This project builds on a 2019 National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) floating offshore wind power cost study in Oregon (Musial et al. 2019) and a recent NREL California cost analysis (Beiter et al. 2020). Floating wind power cost data, modeling methodology, and resource data are updated and LCOE is estimated through 2032 using 2019 as a reference year. Comparisons are made to the previous offshore wind energy cost studies (Musial et al. 2019; Beiter et al. 2020). The study does not prioritize specific sites or make judgments about marine spatial planning viability.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

The Costs and Feasibility of Floating Offshore Wind Energy in the O'ahu Region

The State of Hawai'i has set a target to achieve a 100% Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) by 2045, and is well suited to become the first state to achieve this goal due to its relatively small load, high electricity prices, heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels, and favorable conditions for wind and solar. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management contracted NREL to conduct a cost and feasibility study to provide information to decision makers on Hawai'i about the viability of floating offshore wind to be a part of the 100% RPS. We used NREL's Offshore Regional Cost Analyzer (ORCA) spatial cost model to evaluate the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) in the region surrounding O'ahu as this is the island with the highest energy demand. The ORCA results showed that LCOE could range from around $\$$83 MWh to $\$$194 MWh for commercial operation dates in 2019 but has the potential to decrease to $\$$48 MWh - $\$$109 MWh by 2032 due to maturing global supply chains, increasing turbine rating, and new technological innovations. These costs are expected to be competitive with global floating wind costs in the early 2030s. The strong wind resource, proximity to infrastructure on land, and benign metocean conditions can potentially compensate for the logistical complexities of installing projects in Hawai'i far from mainland supply chains if sufficient investments are made to develop ports, grid infrastructure, and workforce on O'ahu to support the construction and operation of offshore wind projects. In addition to the cost results, this report also discusses the likely technologies that would comprise floating wind projects near O'ahu, the existing infrastructure available to projects, unique conditions facing offshore wind in the region such as exposure to hurricanes and limits on allowable export cable capacity, newly developed wind resource data sets for the region, and local stakeholder perspectives on offshore wind.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Integrating Cambium Marginal Costs into Electric Sector Decisions: Opportunities to Integrate Cambium Marginal Cost Data into Berkeley Lab Analysis and Technical Assistance

NREL’s Cambium tool generates forward-looking simulations of marginal wholesale electricity costs associated with NREL’s Standard Scenarios. The scenarios include growing shares of variable renewable energy (VRE, i.e. wind and solar), among other power sector assumptions, between 2018 and 2050. The tool’s primary output—hourly costs at more than 130 balancing areas—could serve as public and transparent data source that supports electric-sector decision-making processes across the U.S. Berkeley Lab conducts a large range of analyses that use historical and forward-looking wholesale electricity prices to inform electric-sector decisions. In this report, Berkeley Lab uses its expertise to evaluate the Cambium cost data. We compare Cambium data with historical wholesale prices for the year 2018 and other modeled prices for the year 2030. We then present eight case studies in which Berkeley Lab researchers use Cambium data to replicate previous analyses based on other price datasets. We describe where primary findings and underlying key price dynamics align or differ, and highlight possible novel insights from the Cambium data. Finally, we qualitatively evaluate the suitability of Cambium costs in ten additional Berkeley Lab studies, though a direct comparison with alternative price data was not feasible at this time. The goal is to inform how electric-sector decision-makers and DOE program offices may be able to use this cohesive dataset, and to highlight what improvements to Cambium may make it even more useful.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Identification and Testing of Electric Vehicle Fast Charger Cybersecurity Mitigations

Fast-charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs) is needed to enable and achieve the national goals of transitioning the vehicle fleet toward more electrification. Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have jointly worked to identify, evaluate, and mitigate potential cyber-related consequences associated with fast charger systems. NREL contributed by considering cyberattack scenarios and consequences associated with integrating distributed energy resources (DERs) at fast-charging stations. The dynamic nature of fast-charger load profiles would encourage site operators to incorporate solar for energy cost reduction and energy storage for peak demand cost management at future charging facilities with multiple fast chargers at a site. These energy resources would be monitored and coordinated via a site energy management controller with data exchange between devices and local power metering infrastructure; thus, networking between devices and the design of the system becomes important in the overall cybersecurity posture. In addition, component vendors and system operators might have remote interfaces to any of these systems. It is therefore important to understand the breadth of the cyberattack surface and potential strategies to mitigate impacts. This project has focused on components and protocols expected to be found within a local charging site that includes multiple chargers and DER resources. Our methods and results are summarized in this final report.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Cybersecurity Certification Recommendations for Interconnected Grid Edge Devices and Inverter Based Resources

Escalating deployment of PV and grid-edge devices on the distribution grid has increased the sustainability and efficiency of the electric grid. However, the increasing number of distributed energy resources (DERs) deployed creates a heightened cyber-physical interdependency on the distribution grid and thus creates more vectors for cyber-attacks to exploit through information and communication technology (ICT) systems and networks. For example, control signal packets can be modified, intercepted, or corrupted due to vulnerabilities in communication protocols used by microgrid controllers and grid edge devices for power control. Therefore, to mitigate and prevent cyber-attacks on grid edge devices and the inverter-based resources connected to the distribution grid, the U.S. Department of Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) awarded funding to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) to research, develop, and harmonize cybersecurity standards for Photovoltaic (PV) systems and for other kinds of DERs. To help develop a standard for DER cybersecurity, NREL established certification recommendations and test cases, in consensus with the solar industry and UL, for ensuring intrinsic design security for DERs. These recommendations were developed to bolster the cybersecure functionalities such as TLS, MAC, CRL, session resumption/renegotiation, and password, system, and service security management within the DER devices. The proposed test cases verify authentication, authorization, confidentiality, and data integrity for data and communications of DERs that use Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). They were also developed to protect DER communications from eavesdropping, replay, man-in-the-middle, denial of service (DoS), spoofing through security certificates, least-privilege violation, and brute-force credentials. This report, which has been validated and reviewed by UL, expands upon those test cases to provide DER cybersecurity certification recommendations which increase DER resiliency and help to mitigate cyber-attacks. UL's collaboration with NREL and approval of this document will accelerate the adoption of a UL standard for DER cybersecurity.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Resilience Assessment: Cape Cod National Seashore

The NPS partnered with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in 2019 to develop resilience plans at specific high-risk parks as well as a resilience planning guide to inform resilience planning decisions by NPS and other federal land management agencies. The purpose of this project is to further examine the vulnerability of coastal park infrastructure specific to energy, communications, transportation, and water systems, for future operational resilience across the NPS portfolio. Leveraging previously compiled vulnerability assessments and renewable energy analyses, NREL has completed resilience plans at specific high-risk pilot parks to serve as a foundation for more comprehensive assessments and resilience planning activities. This report is a summary of the efforts at Cape Cod National Seashore (CACO), which outlines the methodology used and the results of the analysis, with the intention of serving as a case study for other parks interested in replicating the process.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Cambium Documentation: Version 2021

Cambium is a tool that assembles structured data sets of simulated hourly emission, cost, and operational data for modeled futures of the U.S. electric sector with metrics designed to be useful for long-term decision-making. It was built to expand the metrics reported in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Standard Scenarios - an annually released set of projections of how the U.S. electric sector could evolve across a suite of different potential futures, looking forward through 2050 (Cole et al. 2021) Information about Cambium and related publications can be found at https://nrel.gov/analysis/cambium.html, and the Cambium data sets for the Standard Scenarios can be viewed and downloaded at https://cambium.nrel.gov/. In this documentation, we define the metrics reported in Cambium databases (Section 4) and document the Cambium-specific methods for calculating those metrics (Section 5). As this document is intended to cover multiple Cambium data releases, we do not document specific scenarios here - for individual data releases, readers should look for an accompanying report that describes the assumptions and data that underlie that specific release. For Cambium databases that are built on NREL's Standard Scenarios, for example, reports describing the scenarios can be found on the Standard Scenarios web site (https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/standard-scenarios.html).

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Potential Infrastructure Cost Savings at Hybrid Wind Plus Solar PV Plants

This report documents the creation of NREL's Balance of System model for Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HybridBOSSE). Balance of System (BOS) costs account for approximately 30% of the capital expenditure required to install a land-based wind plant, and as much as 40% of the cost of installing a solar PV plant. Hybrid Renewable Energy systems present an opportunity to combine balance of system components to achieve cost savings, and HybridBOSSE aims to provide a component-level model to determine the associated BOS costs in a hybrid renewable energy system. Prior BOS models for hybrid systems (at NREL and elsewhere) have relied on empirical curve fits of legacy industry data, limiting their utility and their predictive ability for new technology combinations and configurations, such as those found in Hybrid Plants. Hybrid plants at the utility scale have considerably more interest in the last number of years, with ever-growing capacities in the interconnection queues, and many large developers pivoting to only consider hybrid plants going forward. As these plants become a commercial reality, the need for a detailed analysis of costs in a hybrid plant to fully exploit the available cost savings grows. The tool developed and documented in this work, HybridBOSSE, provides an open-source, python-based method of assessing the costs in hybrid plants. This analysis capability unlocks greater certainty in hybrid plant costs, as well as the ability to examine scenarios of hybridization and glean combinations that offer the greatest flexibility and cost reduction.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

U.S. Building Stock Characterization Study: A National Typology for Decarbonizing U.S. Buildings

To support the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Building Construction (ABC) Collaborative, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has been tasked with characterizing the U.S. building stock and developing a national typology of buildings. The potential use cases of such a typology are flexible and evolving, but in this initial phase, the primary intention is to help identify technology requirements and engineering solutions for moving the U.S. building stock toward a zero-carbon future by midcentury. This study was developed by NREL, with input from the ABC Analysis Working Group, which is a subset of the ABC Collaborative led by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Home Energy Professionals Certifications ISO/IEC 17024: 2021 Policies and Procedures Manual

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) enlisted its National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to coordinate the development of a framework for new certifications in the weatherization and home performance industry. The Home Energy Professional certifications support DOE's Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) and the broader residential home performance industry through the credentialing process of defined job task analysis for energy auditors and quality control inspectors. The HEP certifications are not intended to supplant or infringe upon any existing industry-recognized credentials, however, the WAP and the home performance industry have utilized the advanced HEP certifications to promote quality work and standardized job task analysis since 2010. On an ongoing basis, NREL brings industry practitioners and subject matter experts together to develop, review, and revise the certification schemes in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 17024 standard, "Conformity assessment - General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons" (ISO/IEC 17024). This handbook covers the policies and procedures for the process of developing, maintaining, and validating the certification schemes. Each policy and procedure includes the relevant ISO/IEC 17024 section at the beginning.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Enabling New Approaches to Low-Cost Dopant Patterning for Interdigitated Back Contact Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells: Cooperative Research and Development, CRADA Number CRD-17-00665 (Final Report)

NREL is sub to the Department of Energy (DOE) Photovoltaic Research & Development (PVRD) project, titled "New Approaches to Low-Cost Scalable Doping for Interdigitated Back Contact Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells", awarded to Colorado School of Mines. The goal of this project was to develop an industrially relevant dopant patterning technique that enable high performing, cost efficient Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) solar cells based on n-Cz silicon wafer. Several possibilities were explored at the beginning of the project and the masked plasma deposition was deselected as the most promising and industrially relevant. This method was thoroughly explored ion the course of the project, its limitations revealed and mitigated. NREL successfully the masked deposition integrated into the cell's process flow and produced the cells, alongside with numerous process development steps and application of in-house advanced characterization techniques. The report describes these developments by the task and in detail.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

SolarAPP+ Pilot Analysis: Performance and Impact of Instant, Online Solar Permitting

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) led a collaborative effort to develop the Solar Automated Permit Processing Plus (SolarAPP+), a no-cost solar permitting software solution to address residential solar photovoltaic (PV) permitting resource constraints and streamline solar adoption processes among authorities having jurisdiction (AHJs). The SolarAPP+ is an online portal that automates permit plan review, enabling an instant permit approval process for code-compliant residential PV systems. Based on national model building, electrical, and fire codes, the SolarAPP+ automatically performs a compliance check of permit inputs against code requirements and produces an inspection checklist that can be used to verify installation practices, workmanship, and adherence to the approved design. NREL conducted a two-phase pilot with five participating AHJs and 16 solar contractors, spanning from November 2020 through December 2021, evaluating the ability of SolarAPP+ to deliver instant permits and its impact on four critical areas within each AHJ: permit review timelines; solar adoption timelines; AHJ time saved; and inspection results. The pilot confirmed that SolarAPP+ reduced permit review times to less than one day, reduced solar adoption timelines by an average of 12 days, saved an estimated 2,067 staff hours, and had comparable inspection results to those found in traditional permitting. The pilot further identified key lessons for improving SolarAPP+, including ways to streamline SolarAPP+ adoption, development of training resources, and expansion of supported products.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Integration of Clean Energy into Oil Field Operations

Integrating clean energy into oil and gas operations could reduce emissions and maximize higher-value use of produced hydrocarbons. In this published study, analysts from the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) evaluated clean power technologies for an oil field in the Delaware Basin using NREL’s Renewable Energy Integration and Optimization, or REopt, tool. The analysts evaluated different configurations of distributed energy resources based on the technologies available and the load they could satisfy, available land, and hypothetical carbon pricing. The analysis is part of a collaborative program with industry to understand site-specific energy consumption and prices in the oil and gas supply chain and determine under what conditions clean energy options are economically attractive. This work was sponsored by a consortium including ConocoPhillips, Baker Hughes, Extraction Oil & Gas, Kinder Morgan, and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America Foundation.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Low Cost High Efficiency Photovoltaics Using Semiconductor Nanocrystals: Cooperative Research and Development CRADA Number CRD-15-00598 (Final Report)

Collaboration will occur between NREL and KIMM in the area of semiconductor nanocrystals for use in advanced solar photon energy conversion strategies. The project takes advantage of the unique capabilities and expertise regarding the incorporation of quantum dots (QD) into solar energy technologies that are available at NREL within the BES-funded programs. KIMM has unique expertise in the synthesis of new types of nanocrystals as well as advanced processes for solution processing.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗