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At least 703 records · Page 39

Distributed Wind Controls: A Research Roadmap for Microgrids, Infrastructure Resilience, and Controls Launchpad (MIRACL)

The Microgrids, Infrastructure Resilience, and Advanced Controls Launchpad (MIRACL) project’s controls research area aims to expand the benefits from distributed wind (DW) generation assets beyond solely providing low cost power directly to consumers. To make distributed wind turbines operate more effectively there is a need for more advanced ways to control them, allowing power companies, businesses, and energy consumers to take advantage of the unique characteristics of wind energy. DW can contribute to the safe and secure operation of grid by providing services such as voltage regulation, frequency regulation, spinning reserves, and even black start capabilities. In the larger DER context where much of the research has focused around solar technologies, the inertia available in wind technologies has generally not been considered. For wind turbines to provide these services in an optimal and expanded way, development and demonstration of control methods and communication interfaces within a grid and microgrid framework are required. In this document, NREL led the literature review in collaboration with SNL, of DER controls-focused integration research to establish a baseline for the controls research under the MIRACL project to identify specific control functions to be focused on throughout this project. This literature review focused primarily on the control functions of variable distributed generation, largely pulling from past solar PV and battery controls works, with a specific focus on applicability for distributed wind energy systems. The goal of this document is to identify a research roadmap based on the open literature and past national laboratory works to inform advanced wind turbine and power electronics control functions for four use cases: 1) distributed wind in isolated systems, 2) grid-connected microgrids (wind-hybrid systems and islanded operation), 3) behind-the-meter distributed wind applications in the power distribution systems, and 4) front-of-the-meter distributed wind applications in the power distribution systems.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Requirements Document for replacement of the Fleet Management System (FMS)

Asset Management and LivIT have identified the Fleet Management System (FMS) application technology to be not supported in the near future by LivIT. In previous reviews of Fleet applications, it was determined to move more functionality toward Fleet Focus and make that application the centerpiece for Fleet Operations at LLNL. The scope of the project is to combine both FMS and Fleet Focus applications together.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Fossil Power Plant Cyber Security Life-Cycle Risk Reduction, A Practical Framework for Implementation

Market conditions are forcing fossil electricity generation facility owners and operators to implement advanced digital technologies. These technologies enable efficiencies, operational flexibility, operations and maintenance efficiencies, and adapting to a transitioning workforce. These digital technologies, however, can increase the cybersecurity attack surface. The purpose of this research was to develop a holistic cybersecurity risk reduction framework for fossil generation facilities. The framework begins with assessing how cyber risk changes across facility life cycles, including plant, system, vendor, and business life cycles. The next phase performs consequence analysis to prioritize high consequence events. Focusing on high consequence events allows owners to use a graded, risk-informed approach to prioritize cybersecurity efforts. The final phase identifies the digital asset attack surface in sensors and instrumentation and control equipment. After the vulnerabilities are identified, the owner selects mitigating cybersecurity control measures (or countermeasures) based on the risk analysis from the previous phases. This report describes the current industry cybersecurity best practices in fossil generation that are based on the first principles for cybersecurity engineering. The report is divided into five sections that describe the implementation of the risk reduction framework and present identified research, methodological, and technology gaps that were identified through this course of research and development.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Competitiveness Metrics for Electricity System Technologies

The relative economic competitiveness of power generation technologies is a topic of much interest to diverse electric industry participants. However, assessing competitiveness can be challenging as it requires considering both total costs and total system value of each technology, which are complicated by the (1) numerous and diverse grid services needed to operate a reliable power system; (2) variations in the economic value of the grid services with system state and location, and over multiple timescales, due to the challenges of transporting and storing electricity; and (3) the unique characteristics of different electric system assets. Ideally, metrics designed or used to convey technology competitiveness must consider these complexities, but existing metrics often fall short. For example, the levelized cost of energy does not consider the system economic value of the various technologies nor does it consider services beyond electricity production. Various other metrics have been designed with the purpose of more-accurately communicating the economic viability of electric system technologies. In this report, we summarize the primary sources and components of costs and value and review the known competitiveness metrics by presenting their definitions, applications, advantages, and disadvantages. We also introduce a new set of competitiveness metrics, which we refer to as System Profitability metrics, that more-directly applies the economic principles of return-on-investment to electric system technologies. We use conceptual examples to show how the System Profitability metrics better reflect economic viability and relative technology competitiveness compared with existing metrics. We also describe how competitiveness metrics can be quantified using optimization-based models and demonstrate this capability using a U.S. electric sector capacity expansion model.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

W-8 Production Liaison brochure [Slides]

W-8 is part of the Weapon Systems (W) Engineering Division. W Division provides the system engineering and program management necessary to sustain the safety, reliability, and security of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s assets in the active United States nuclear stockpile: the B61, W76, W78, and W88.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Data-Driven Exploration of Climate Attractor Manifolds For Long-Term Predictability

Focal Area: This white paper responds to Focal Area 3. We seek to gain insight into decadal-scale climate predictability by applying novel manifold-finding probabilistic AI techniques to the complex data produced by Earth System models (ESMs) such as E3SM. The associated portfolio of research activities leverages DOE’s asset mix of HPC platforms, climate expertise, climate simulation codes, and AI expertise. Science Challenge: Climate and climate models are dynamical systems exhibiting properties that are interpretable through chaos theory. The theory contains an important concept that is relevant to multi-decade-scale climate prediction: a chaotic attractor. While the space containing all the possible states of the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean, the possible weather, is large, the realized states tend to stay near the smaller-dimensioned attractor. This behavior is responsible for the “order behind the irregularity” [1] of climate phenomena. Climate change can be thought of as a change in the properties of the attractor, and predicting the climate over years to decades is equivalent to predicting how those properties will change. To date, the attractor has been a useful conceptual tool, but has not been amenable to direct characterization. A new development is the advent of efficient high-dimensional manifold-finding probabilistic AI techniques, which permit a data-driven characterization of the ESM attractor and its probability distribution over weather states. Such a characterization would result in a natural dimensional reduction — a “non-linear Principal Components Analysis (PCA) adapted to climate simulation data” — leading to important advances in scenario-based long-term climate prediction, long-term prediction of water cycle extremes, ESM verification, inter-model comparison, and process model development.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Probabilistic Machine Learning and Data Assimilation

This white paper responds to Focal Area 1. The associated portfolio of research activities is well-suited to DOE’s asset mix of HPC platforms, climate expertise, climate simulation codes, and AI expertise, which creates an opportunity to use manifold-finding probabilistic AI methods to create more powerful data assimilation techniques that increase the fidelity and forecasting skill of Earth System Prediction.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Analytics-at-scale of Sensor Data for Digital Monitoring in Nuclear Plants: 2nd Annual Report

For economic reasons, the nuclear industry is witnessing premature closure of nuclear power plants, despite excellent safety records. Operations and Maintenance (O&M) activities are some of the largest costs in operating legacy light-water plants. By reducing O&M costs, nuclear energy can become more economically competitive with other energy sources. This can be achieved by leveraging machine-learning and artificial intelligence technologies to develop data-driven algorithms to better diagnose potential faults within the system. Improved accuracy of the models can lead to a reduction in unnecessary maintenance, thus reducing costs associated with parts, labor, and unnecessary planned, forced, or extended outages. To address these challenges, the goal of this project is to perform research and development in the area of digital monitoring, i.e., the application of advanced sensor technologies (particularly wireless sensor technologies) and data science based analytic capabilities, to advance online monitoring and predictive maintenance in nuclear plants and improve plant performance (efficiency gain and economic competitiveness). This report summarizes the fiscal year 2020 research progress encompassing (1) different wireless vibration sensor and data indicators used to assess the health of a plant asset; (2) development of diagnostic models for fault detection; and (3) development of prognostic models for estimating the health of the system up to 7 days ahead.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Modeling Explosive Dispersal of Radiological Material: A Nonparametric Analysis

The National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC) is a Department of Energy (DOE) asset that provides guidance on the potential effects of atmospherically released hazards based on dispersion simulation results. Numerical simulation results are compared to well-characterized experimental measurements whenever possible to validate and refine the model predictions. In 2012, such measurements were obtained by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and collaborating organizations for the case of explosively released 140 La – a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 1.6781 days.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A Circular Economy for Solar Photovoltaic System Materials: Drivers, Barriers, Enablers, and U.S. Policy Considerations

As PV capacity increases, owners are also decommissioning older system assets. Estimates based on a 30-year lifetime assumption found that cumulative U.S. end-of-life (EoL) PV modules could total one million metric tons (Mt) by 2030 and up to 10 million Mt by 2050 (Weckend, Wade, and Heath 2016). Beyond maintenance replacements, early retirements that are due to efficiency upgrades and extreme weather, as well as PV deployment beyond earlier expectations, would increase these projections. PV system owners must evaluate equipment management options for used modules and system components retired during maintenance activities, refurbishment, repowering and system decommissioning. PV manufacturers must also evaluate material management options from customer returns, defects, and scrap. Management options for early retired and EoL PV system material include reuse, repair for reuse, recycling-based resource recovery, storage, and disposal. Disposal of PV system material increases the burden on landfill capacity, while reuse, repair for reuse, and recycling-based resource recovery (reuse/repair/recovery) options salvage valuable materials and provide secondary market opportunities and ancillary benefits (Weckend, Wade, and Heath 2016; EPA 2019c; SWEEP 2019). PV system owners may also decide store used modules and components as spares, or in the interim before a reuse or EoL management decision is made. Despite potential secondary market opportunities and the potential benefits associated with the repair/reuse/recovery of PV system material, anecdotal evidence suggests that in the United States decommissioned PV modules are stored, landfilled or otherwise disposed of (Salim et al. 2019; CPUC 2019b; DTSC 2019b; NREL 2019a). Some modules are being disposed of in municipal nonhazardous landfills and federally regulated hazardous treatment, storage, and disposal facilities, and others are being stored in warehouses until economically viable repair/reuse/recycling becomes available (CPUC 2019b; DTSC 2019b; NREL 2019a; Libby and Shaw 2018). As awareness of current practices grows, and the demand for critical PV module material increases, U.S. industry stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers are starting to (1) consider solutions to drive and enable environmentally sustainable materials management decisions and behaviors and (2) identify barriers to a circular economy for PV system materials. Circular economy principles attempt to transition from a "take-make-consume-dispose" linear economic system to a circular system that allows for the long life, and the reuse/repair/recovery of products and materials (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2020). We begin this report by summarizing the drivers, barriers, and enablers to a circular economy for PV system materials in the United States. We then report on our analysis of federal and state regulatory considerations that may impact the repair/reuse/recovery of PV materials, and potential civil and criminal liabilities associated with noncompliance. We then discuss state policies and initiatives in the United States that expressly address PV system decommissioning and repair/reuse/recovery of PV materials. We conclude by providing case studies of U.S. business models for the repair/reuse/recovery of PV system materials. Our results are based on legal and literature-based research and interviews with solar industry stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Validation of the Public Radiation Exposure Calculation for the Incident at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research on February 3, 2021

The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration Consequence Management Program was contacted by the Health Physics Chief of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) to review public radiation exposure calculations for an event that occurred on its Gaithersburg, Maryland, campus on February 3, 2021. Subject matter experts from the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) assets, specifically the Consequence Management Home Team (CMHT) and the National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC), were selected to provide support. CMHT used three separate modeling codes to validate the results the scientists at NCNR calculated using the HotSpot model. The analyses were performed using NARAC’s in-house Lagrangian dispersion codes known as LODI and Aeolus, as well as the Turbo FRMAC software from Sandia National Laboratories. The team used parameters provided by the NCNR scientists regarding the site, applicable observable meteorological data, and environmental survey and sampling data to estimate public exposure. Each model estimated public dose at much less than 0.5 mrem. CMHT concurs with the NCNR public radiation exposure calculations which state that members of the public at the 400-meter boundary would have received a radiological dose of less than 0.5 mrem.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Evaluating Utility-Scale PV-Battery Hybrids in an Operational Model for the Bulk Power System

Systems that combine solar photovoltaic and battery energy storage technologies (PV-BES) are increasingly being proposed and deployed on the bulk power system. The operations and value of PV-BES systems have been extensively studied from the project developer's perspective through analyses that maximize plant-level revenue. However, PV-BES hybrids' operational characteristics are seldom studied from the perspective of bulk power system operators, who seek to optimize the performance of a suite of generation and storage assets that are connected via the transmission network. This work presents modeling approaches for representing and evaluating PV-BES hybrids in a model that optimizes operations across the bulk power system. Its novel contributions include demonstrating a technique to modify a unit commitment and dispatch model to represent the operational synergies of PV-BES hybrids. In particular, we describe the challenges and an approach for representing so-called DC-coupled PV-BES - which utilize a single bi-directional inverter - as a dispatchable resource in a commercial, production cost model (PCM), PLEXOS. We demonstrate this technique in a PCM study of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) test system, by replacing existing PV and battery generators on the test system with our PV-BES hybrids. We then pursue scenario analysis that is designed to isolate the various drivers of operational strategies for DC-coupled PV-BES hybrids, including the nature of coupling, PV penetration on the system, and varying inverter loading ratios (or degrees of over-sizing of the PV field). Results from the analysis include utilization profiles for the PV DC energy across available pathways, dispatch profiles for the battery component, and the hybrid technologies' impacts on system-wide production costs. The approach presented in this paper can be used in any PCM that is looking to study PV-BES hybrids as a resource in different power system configurations and services.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Investigation of Cycling Coal-Fired Power Plants Using High-Fidelity Models

The project delivers a well-integrated and validated simulation platform for cycling operation analysis in coal-fired power plant. Two critical mechanical components of the boiler island were analyzed through mechanical integrity assessment and economic benefit analysis. The current phase of the project focuses on the development of the integrated simulation infrastructure and prove its feasibility and effectiveness using two typical use cases. This integrated platform can help save a lot of engineering efforts for model development and simulation analysis. Through the real simulation scenarios in this document, it was demonstrated that using this platform, an analysis can be completed in approximately 2 days, while it could cost several weeks before using this platform. Going forward, the platform built in this project can be used for more boiler service applications, and it can be further enhanced with more functions/features to maximize its usage and benefits. 1) Extend component-level analysis with more use cases to cover all the major critical components of boiler island under cycling operations. A library of critical components can be developed and validated for typical pulverized coal-fired subcritical boiler units. 2) Develop predictive maintenance features based on the integrated models (Digital Twins) and engineering analysis procedures. Predictive maintenance enables each asset to be serviced based on forecast on life consumption and cost profile for replacing/welding the critical mechanical parts of the boiler. This minimizes the chance of unscheduled shutdowns and emergency services at much higher costs and prevent the fatal accidents in unit operations. 3) Develop and maintain a standard library for critical component analysis under flexible plant operations, which will include libraries of: process models, MI models for typical pressure parts, and economic models with typical plant operating data and ISO power trade data.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

America Resilient Climate Conference

On April 14, 2021, scientists, policymakers, and other interested parties from research institutes, academia, and other organizations gathered together virtually at the America Resilient Climate Conference to discuss one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century: building resilience to climate change. Climate change affects the security and health of all Americans. Coastal areas are enduring more frequent and severe flooding due to sea level rise and storm surge; western states and Alaska have experienced increasingly devastating wildfires, driven in part by hotter, drier, and longer fire seasons; and communities across the nation have suffered through extreme precipitation events and heat waves. Even if emissions are reduced aggressively in the near future, the world—and the United States—will continue to feel the impacts of climate change for decades to come, due to the continued accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Consequently, it is essential to act now to protect natural and human assets from the gradual—as well as extreme—impacts of a changing climate. To build resilient communities, leaders and community members need science-based information about the potential impacts climate change will have decades into the future and for specific regions. Therefore, it is essential to develop high-resolution climate models that can project both various climate impacts and the interactions between earth system variables and humans down to regional and local scales. Collecting and curating data for such models and their computational requirements poses large challenges. In the future, artificial intelligence will be needed to increase their accuracy and reduce associated uncertainties. The investments in Earth system science and artificial intelligence made by the U.S. Department of Energy and other federal entities will be essential in addressing these challenges.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Keystone Solar Future Project (KSFP)

The Keystone Solar Future Project (KSFP, also referred to as “Keystone Project” in the report) implements a cost-effective, secure, reliable, and safe technology platform that paves the way for future interconnected distributed energy resources (DER), creates a framework that enables high penetration of DER, and transforms the DER interconnection process. The project is important and necessary in a few aspects. First, the industry definition of Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) is not yet validated against field deployments and mostly implemented in small pilots relying on third party integration. Keystone project implements a direct plug and play communication to inverter based DER systems. Secondly, most interconnection application portal is not yet fully integrated with back-end system, thus lacks the capability to drive a complete and accurate modeling of DER assets into the planning and operational systems. Keystone project rolled out a fully integrated modeling process of DERs from interconnection to operational management. Lastly, customers were given an opportunity to learn about the advanced functions of the inverters and take full advantages of their benefits through participation in the pilot program. During the project, the technical effectiveness and economic feasibility of DER management were investigated and demonstrated in real life events and simulation studies. The project highlighted the importance of coordinated DER interconnection, installation and management with the rest of the distribution system.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Primary Power Large-Scale Pilot Plant

The United States electrical power generation fleet encompasses a wide range of technologies, ranging from traditional combustion-based power generation, to nuclear power, to renewable energy. While the distribution of these assets continues to shift due to economic and regulatory influences, coal combustion continues to be a key part of the US energy portfolio. Despite the relative maturity of coal combustion technology, improvements in overall fuel-to-power efficiency and generation flexibility are still possible and will improve both the economic and environmental factors of coal combustion. Echogen Power Systems proposes to lead a world-class team including the University of Missouri, Electric Power Research Institute and Louis Perry Associates in the design, construction and operation of a 10MWe coal-fired supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO 2 ) large-scale pilot. This transformational technology uses sCO 2 as a working fluid instead of water to achieve high thermodynamic efficiencies that can significantly exceed advanced steam-Rankine cycles. Further, the compact nature of sCO 2 turbomachinery offers capital cost and footprint advantages, and the low maintenance of a water-free power cycle can significantly reduce operation and maintenance (O&M) costs over conventional steam-Rankine systems. Recent integration studies of sCO 2 with coal combustion power plants highlight the significant improvements in plant efficiency that sCO 2 can offer relative to even advanced steam Rankine cycles. At commercial scales, coal-sCO 2 plant net efficiency is predicted to be 39-44.0% (HHV), or 10-20% higher output than conventional steam-Rankine systems, which will significantly improve the competitiveness of coal-fired generation. This proposal builds upon projects previously funded by the Department of Energy, including DE-FE0025959 (High-Efficiency Thermal Integration of Closed Supercritical CO 2 Brayton Power Cycles with Oxy-Fired Heaters) and DE-NE0008470 (Conceptual Design for sCO 2 Power Cycle Test Facility). An appropriately-scaled and properly designed and operated pilot project is essential to overcome the natural risk-aversion of the power generation industry and project financing community. The 10 MWe coal-fired sCO 2 pilot power plant proposed herein will reduce the technical and economic risk of this transformational technology, enabling commercial deployment at the conclusion of the project. For the second phase of this project, Echogen lead a team that completed and refined the pilot system conceptual system and key component designs resulting in the completion of a front-end-engineering-design (FEED) study, completed the NEPA review process, completed the permitting process for construction and operation, refined the techno-economic analysis of the proposed system at commercial scale and received commitments for Phase III cost share. The end result of the program will be to demonstrate the technical and economic superiority of the sCO 2 power cycle for coal-fired operation. Major risk elements will have been retired with sufficient operation at high power to enable the power generation industry to move forward with the first commercial deployment of this transformational system.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Policy and Regulatory Environment for Utility-Scale Energy Storage: Bangladesh

Bangladesh has experienced significant economic growth and poverty reduction over the past several decades. Recognizing the central role electricity plays in economic development, the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) has established policies to accelerate the growth of the electric power sector. The Bangladesh power grid is transforming into one marked by declining reliance on domestic natural gas reserves and oil-based rental power plants, increasing renewable energy contribution, and shifting demand patterns. The GOB is now reconsidering its prior plans to increase the share of coal capacity in the generation mix to meet demand, shifting its focus instead to electricity imports from neighboring countries, nuclear generation, liquified natural gas imports, and domestic renewable resources such as wind and solar. However, investments in the transmission and distribution system, as well as ancillary services, have not kept pace with investments in generation resources over the past decade. Thus, Bangladesh electricity consumers still experience outages and poor power quality despite adequate installed capacity. On the demand side, population growth and industrialization have fueled steady growth in electricity consumption as efforts to expand access to electricity enabled near-universal electricity access by mid-2020. The combined changes in the mix of generation resources and patterns of electricity demand present new challenges and opportunities in operating and maintaining a reliable power system. Energy storage has the potential to help meet these challenges and accelerate Bangladesh’s energy transition. Declining costs for some energy storage technologies make them increasingly cost-effective solutions to provide a wide range of grid services. Previous analyses of energy storage in the region have identified several potential applications for storage at the bulk system level, including energy arbitrage, ancillary services, and transmission network support. The potential for storage to meet these needs depends on many factors, including physical characteristics of the power system and the policy and regulatory environments in which these energy storage assets would operate. This report applies an Energy Storage Readiness Assessment the National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed for policy makers and regulators to identify priority areas of focus as they continue to develop the appropriate suite of policies, programs, and regulations to enable storage deployment. This assessment uses a simple evaluation scheme to identify the barriers and opportunities for utility-scale energy storage within Bangladesh’s policy and regulatory environment.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Dynamic Building Load Control to Facilitate High Penetration of Solar Photovoltaic Generation (Final Technical Report)

Solar photovoltaic (PV) resources are the most common form of distributed generation in residential and commercial customer premises within electric distribution networks. A higher penetration of PV generation in distribution circuits will impose challenges on maintaining service voltages within the range of industry standards, power quality, and power flow. Buildings consume 74% of the electricity produced in the United States, and a significant portion of the building load is dispatchable, making them responsive to electrical grid needs. Oak Ridge National Laboratory—in collaboration with Southern Company; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and the Georgia Institute of Technology—is examining the PV integration issues in distribution-level electrical grids and developing integrated demand-side control and communication systems to enable responsive loads. The proposed responsive loads mechanism performs renewable generation following to increase the penetration of solar PV within each feeder. The specific objectives of this project are to (1) examine distribution-level PV integration scenarios to understand requirements, (2) undertake an end-to-end simulation-based design of a distributed control strategy of loads geographically near the PV generation asset to minimize the effect on the distribution feeder, (3) deploy and demonstrate the control technology developed in partnership with utilities, and (4) perform a scalability analysis at the utility scale. This 3-year integrated project aims to develop, demonstrate, and validate demand-side control technology to enable increased the penetration of renewables while mitigating challenges that arise due to their intermittency. Activities in Budget Period (BP) 1 focused on a literature review and the formal design of a control system for integrating local distribution with generation and loads. The team used modeling and simulation to evaluate the impact of varying buildings loads, variable PV generation, and power flow dynamics on the distribution circuit. The dynamic models developed in BP 1 were used in BP 2 to develop a model-based control design and a test bed. The test bed has enabled the simulation-based testing and comparison of different control designs and formulations applied to different configurations of the distribution grid, PVs, and building loads. The control approaches developed in BP 2 were implemented in BP 3 in the form of hardware deployed at the Central Baptist Church (CBC) in Knoxville, Tennessee, for testing and evaluation. The outcome of this project was the development and demonstration of open-source, low-cost, low-touch sensing and control retrofits to distributed PV generation and building loads that, in a coordinated fashion, provide the load-shaping response needed to integrate high levels of renewable penetration. This research addresses the target metrics by dynamically controlling a load with solar generation variability to minimize the extent of two-way power flow, enhance reliability, facilitate high PV penetration (>100% of peak load in a line segment), and generate scalable software and hardware solutions adaptable to any penetration levels. The research and development activities are focused and designed to be impactful within the relevant 2020 targets time frame.An accurate open-source integration simulation framework for end-to-end control design was developed and deployed at the CBC facility for testing and evaluation. This final report provides a detailed review of the technical results achieved during this 3-year integrated project. A novel spectral analysis of PV data is demonstrated to derive the requirements of the control design. A detailed simulation-based analysis of PV integration at increasing penetration levels is presented using 1 year of PV data to demonstrate the impact on the distribution circuits. Two different control strategies were developed and demonstrated via simulation to track variable PV generation with adaptive load dispatch. The report concludes with a summary of accomplishments and recommendations for a path forward.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗