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DOE OSTI2022

Technology Integration 2021 Annual Progress Report

VTO's Technology Integration Program supports a broad technology portfolio that includes alternative fuels, energy efficient mobility systems and technologies, and other efficient advanced technologies that can reduce transportation energy costs for businesses and consumers. The program provides objective, unbiased data and real-world lessons learned to inform future research needs and support local decision making. It also includes projects to disseminate data, information, and insight, as well as online tools and technology assistance to cities and regions working to implement alternative fuels and energy efficient mobility technologies and systems.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

Energy Snapshot - Palau

This profile provides a snapshot of the energy landscape of Palau, an independent island nation geographically located in the Micronesia region. Over 97% of the island's electricity production is dependent on imported fossil fuels, primarily diesel. Palau is aiming for 45% renewable energy generation by 2025, and is striving to overcome technological, financial, and institutional capacity challenges to meet this goal.

44 EE - Strategic Programs, Energy Transition Init↗
DOE OSTI2024

Instabilities and Mixing in Inertial Confinement Fusion

By imploding fuel of hydrogen isotopes, inertial confinement fusion (ICF) aims to create conditions that mimic those in the Sun's core. This is fluid dynamics in an extreme regime, with the ultimate goal of making nuclear fusion a viable clean energy source. The fuel must be reliably and symmetrically compressed to temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius. After the best part of a century of research, the foremost fusion milestone was reached in 2021, when ICF became the first technology to achieve an igniting fusion fuel (thermonuclear instability), and then in 2022 scientific energy breakeven was attained. A key trade-off of the ICF platform is that greater fuel compression leads to higher burn efficiency, but at the expense of amplified Rayleigh–Taylor and Richtmyer–Meshkov instabilities and kinetic-energy-wasting asymmetries. In extreme cases, these three-dimensional instabilities can completely break up the implosion. Even in the highest-yielding 2022 scientific breakeven experiment, high-atomic-number (high-Z) contaminants were unintentionally injected into the fuel. Here we review the pivotal role that fluid dynamics plays in the construction of a stable implosion and the decades of improved understanding and isolated experiments that have contributed to fusion ignition.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Accomplishments and Year-End Performance Report; Wind Energy Program: Fiscal Year 2021

The National Wind Technology Center (NWTC), located at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Flatirons Campus, has been a driving force in advancing wind energy technology research worldwide since its designation as a DOE national research center in 1992. Enabled by the Flatirons Campus's world-class facilities, scientists, engineers, analysts, and researchers are pushing the frontiers of science to pursue wind energy innovation. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2021, NREL continued to provide the technical expertise, research capabilities, and industry understanding to support DOE's ambitious climate action and research goals by advancing technology, addressing market and deployment barriers, and driving down costs with more efficient, reliable, and predictable wind energy systems. One of several highlights, NREL received an R&D 100 Special Recognition Award for its Thermoplastic Resin System for Wind Turbine Blades. This breakthrough in the wind turbine manufacturing process will enable the production of recyclable blades that are stronger, longer, and less expensive, while increasing energy capture, decreasing energy and transportation costs, and increasing blade reliability. In a year when the entire U.S. economy struggled to address workforce gaps, an NREL study compared wind industry needs, training programs, and hiring practices with perspectives from students and recent college graduates. Researchers hope that, by pinpointing areas of disconnect, the expectations of employers who have difficulty filling entry-level jobs can better align with the preparation of the potential applicants who find it hard to break into the field. The lab also made numerous new data and modeling resources available in FY 2021. Recent NREL releases include a modeling tool for predicting the power performance and structural loads of wind turbines within a wind farm (FAST.Farm), a computational framework for modeling golden eagle behavior near wind farms, and 20 years of offshore wind data. Updates were also made to the widely used Wind Plant Integrated Systems Design and Engineering Model (WISDEM), which couples engineering and cost models to examine system-level trade-offs. Now, bolstered by a renewed national commitment to tackle climate change and revitalize the U.S. economy through increased investment in clean energy - particularly in offshore wind energy - NREL stands poised to lead the way to a sustainable future that powers the United States with significant levels of reliable, low-cost, accessible wind energy. This report provides an overview of the achievements NREL made on behalf of DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) and other partners during FY 2021 (between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021).

Flatirons Campus↗
DOE OSTI2024

Metric DBSCAN

SAND2025-11725O Metric DBSCAN is an implementation of the popular DBSCAN clustering algorithm that works in general metric spaces. DBSCAN is a clustering algorithm, a fundamental building block in machine learning. It takes a set of objects and, given some notion of distance, identifies coherent groups of objects. With Metric DBSCAN, users can provide an arbitrary function to compute distance. Nearly all existing implementations of DBSCAN restrict distance to one of a few formulations. Metric DBScan accomplishes this cleanly and efficiently. The Python source code is on Github. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Dalbey, Keith↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Simulation Modeling Approach to Optimizing Nuclear Waste Dispositioning

The dispositioning of nuclear waste generated at facilities across the country is an ongoing battle that affects us all. National laboratories and research centers dealing in medical research, clean energy, and other nuclear activities such as the Department of Energy (DOE) facilities face the need to properly manage and dispose of nuclear waste. A dynamic modeling solution would enable the DOE and others to make decisions on waste disposal and technological options. In doing so, this research explores modeling techniques using available data to address these situations. The focus being on developing an initial robust and adaptable discrete event model using the ExtendSim tool. This modeling effort will target the dispositioning of transuranic waste at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) which can be expanded to represent the current state of disposition process for waste generated at other DOE facilities. The model aims to assess resource allocation and waste processing options to stabilize productivity and cut the backlog of nuclear waste. By assessing the results of different scenarios, this research aims to provide actionable insights for the DOE. This approach has the potential to significantly improve the management of radioactive waste, offering the capability of evaluating options for optimizing the process for nuclear waste disposal. The findings of this study can serve as a valuable resource for decision-makers and other national laboratories, or research entities engaged in nuclear operations by enabling them to make more informed choices.

Andaverde, Alexis↗
DOE OSTI2024

Case Studies and Parametric Analysis of Heliostat Performance With a Tradeoff-Informed Technoeconomic Analysis Metric

The Heliostat Consortium (HelioCon) was launched in 2021 to advance heliostat technology. Here this work presents a collection of baseline case studies for the technoeconomic analysis (TEA) of candidate heliostat improvements for concentrating solar power (CSP) and concentrated solar thermal (CST) systems that employ central receivers. The case studies we develop include a large-scale CSP plant, a smaller, modular CSP plant, and a small CST plant used for industrial process heat. In this work, we also propose a novel metric for TEA of a plant component technology that recasts relative changes in levelized system costs into component-specific capital cost budgets. This measure, which we refer to as the equivalent breakeven installed cost, is the maximum budget for the technology component that leads to improved levelized costs. Finally, we perform a parametric analysis to show the impact of candidate technologies on the levelized cost of heat and, by extension, equivalent breakeven installed cost.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Evaluation of Hybrid FPOG Applications in Regulated and Deregulated Markets Using HERON

Recent changes in the U.S. energy market, such as low natural gas prices and increased electricity production for variable renewable energy (VRE) sources, have led to an economic crisis for existing light-water reactor (LWR) nuclear power plants (NPP). Many owners and operators of LWRs have elected to decommission these plants rather than continue using them as consistent sources of clean baseload power. This has led to exploration of various possibilities to increase the economic viability of these units, including market restructuring to monetize benefits LWRs already provide to the grid through ancillary markets, load following and economic dispatch, and possible integration of secondary systems directly to the NPP for production of additional products through technologies such as hydrogen electrolysis or water desalination. Previous studies have considered the technologies associated with these Integrated Energy Systems (IES) activities, and the analysis of markets for these secondary products. To analyze the economic viability of various system configurations including IES, especially given the uncertainty surrounding load demand, electricity prices, and the availability of VRE resources, the stochastic technoeconomic analysis package HERON (Heuristic Energy Resource Optimization Network) was released earlier this year as an extension of the risk analysis framework RAVEN (Risk Analysis Virtual Environment). HERON focuses foremost on making the complex uncertainty quantification analysis tools approachable for energy systems analysts, also providing general dispatch optimization algorithms for those workflows. HERON continues to be improved and tested as a significant part of the IES viability analyses performed in this work. HERON is not a capacity expansion model. To consider market and grid energy system development in a variety of scenarios, HERON is best used in coupling with modelling tools such as US-REGEN, which sacrifice some of the uncertainty analysis and resolution of HERON's modelling for the ability to efficiently predict the change in the grid energy system's profile due to economic drivers over decades. HERON can then use this information to explore the economic viability of introducing changes to the predicted outcomes, such as the introduction of an IES. In this work, experts at EPRI using US-REGEN provide six projection scenarios for use in HERON stochastic technoeconomic analysis (STEA) in considering the options available for increasing LWR economic viability through introduction of a hydrogen-centric IES using a high-temperature steam electrolysis plant (HTSE), hydrogen storage, and a constant-rate contracted hydrogen consumer. The results obtained are differential in nature; they do not report expected profits for any configuration, but rather report on the possible increase in the NPV of a configuration with respect to a baseline no-IES configuration. Due to the uncertainty captured in the variable net load of the systems, there is likewise uncertainty in the mean values reported. We consider this viability both in terms of a regulated market, where the energy producers and IES are owned and operated by single entity, as well as a deregulated market, where the IES chooses its bid for electricity generation and is then dispatched by the grid system operator. Results indicate that for deregulated markets, the inclusion of the IES is often statistically beneficial. This is especially true in policies that are not favorable towards nuclear, as nuclear is less often dispatched and is forced to deal with frequent idle capacity. In the nominal case as well as the case of carbon tax policies, inclusion of the IES clearly benefited the economic performance of the NPP. In the regulated case, however, there was a trend towards minimizing the IES, likely due to the optimal sizing performed by US-REGEN of the NPP within the system as well as the lack of penalty for idle capacity at the NPP in the regulated market analyses.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

A Step toward Process Electrification: Microwave-Assisted Co-Gasification of Waste Plastics and Biomass to Produce Clean Energy

Barely 9% of the 353 million metric tons of plastic waste produced worldwide over the last two decades has been recycled, with the majority of it being either landfilled or incinerated. Recycling and upcycling plastic waste is thus essential in mitigating environmental pollution. Gasification is the thermochemical conversion of solid carbon feedstock at high temperatures using a gasifying agent to produce hydrogen-rich syngas. Existing gasification technologies are energy-intensive and require high operating temperatures (>1000 °C), leaving them uncommercial. Microwave heating has sparked attention in a variety of chemical processes due to its specific advantages over traditional heating technologies, such as rapid and selective heating to improve process efficiency. NETL’s research team recently investigated the synergistic advantages of corn stover and mixed plastics in producing hydrogen-rich syngas via microwave heating. As a continuation of the research, this study provides an outlook over the non-catalytic versus catalytic effects of plastic-corn stover gasification via process electrification to enhance H2 production, minimize undesired tar, and improve process efficiency. Our aim is to provide complete electrification of the existing gasification process by using waste plastics as a starting block to produce valuable fuel and support the nation’s net zero goals.

Abedin, Ashraf↗
DOE OSTI2023

Co-design optimization of combined heat and power-based microgrids

With the emergent need for clean and reliable energy resources, hybrid energy systems, such as the microgrid, are widely adopted in the United States. A microgrid can consist of various distributed energy resources, for instance, combined heat and power (CHP) systems. Here, the CHP module is a distributed cogeneration technology that produces electricity and recaptures heat generated as a by-product. It is an energy-efficient technology converting heat that would otherwise be wasted to valuable thermal energy. For an optimal system configuration, this study develops a novel co-design optimization framework for CHP-based cogeneration microgrids. The framework provides the stakeholder with a method to optimize investments and attain resilient operations. The proposed co-design framework has a mixed integer programming (MIP) model that outputs decisions for both plant designs and operating controls. The microgrid considered in this study contains six components: the CHP, boiler, heat recovery unit, thermal storage system, power storage system, and photovoltaic plant. After solving the MIP model, the optimal design parameters of each component can be found to minimize the total installation cost of all components in the microgrid. Furthermore, the online costs from energy production, operation, maintenance, machine startup, and disruption-induced unsatisfied loads are minimized by solving the optimal control decisions for operations. Case studies based on designing a CHP-based microgrid with empirical data are conducted. Moreover, we consider both nominal and disruptive operational scenarios to validate the performance of the proposed co-design framework in terms of a cost-effective, resilient system.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Methane Pyrolysis for CO2-free H2 and Carbon Nanomaterials (Abstract)

We propose to continue to develop a new process for producing CO2-free hydrogen (H2) from inexpensive and domestically-abundant natural gas (NG), while simultaneously reducing H2’s net production cost to $1.0/kg through the sale of valuable crystalline solid carbon co-product. Producing clean hydrogen at this price is a DOE Hydrogen Energy Earthshot goal. Cost effective production of clean H2 is also of commercial relevance to project partners Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) and startup company C4-MCP, who aim to further develop, demonstrate at scale, and ultimately deploy the new process technology developed on this project in order to meet regulatory demands in the State of California. In the current project we have focused on i) understanding the catalyst science for thermocatalytic decomposition of methane (TCD), which resulted in the development of a patent pending bimetallic catalyst offering favorable activity, stability, and selectivity under industrially relevant process conditions, ii) developing a novel, patent pending process to enable the separation of produced carbon and catalyst, and re-synthesis of the catalyst using recycled materials, iii) performing limited characterization of the produced carbon materials, and iv) performing detailed process modeling in order to perform techno economic assessment. The additional scope proposed here will accelerate the commercial deployment of TCD for CO2-free H2 and valuable solid carbon nanotubes (CNT) co-product, by i) scaling up the production of CNT co-product using a scalable, fluidized bed reactor (25 g catalyst scale versus the 1 g catalyst scale demonstrated to-date), ii) producing at least 40 g of CNT product, produced via multiple cycles of TCD, carbon-catalyst separation, and catalyst re-synthesis, to enable the production of sufficient quantities of solid carbon so as to explore its market potential, iii) understanding the quality of the co-product CNTs, produced at larger scale, through advanced characterization, and iv) beginning to explore multiple promising high volume carbon product applications (thermoplastics, automotive composites, battery, and cement reinforcement applications).

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2023

Data-Driven Buy Clean: Decarbonization and Beyond

This report was compiled to provide recommendations on the availability of public background data from the U.S. Federal life cycle assessment (LCA) Data Commons to be conformant with the Association for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA) 2022 Product Category Rule (PCR) Open Standard to build technical tools that can assist industry in creating more comparable Type II Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for Federal Buy Clean and sustainability initiatives. The Federal LCA Commons is not only a public data source but also a consistently structured, self-referencing mega-repository for data developed by federal agency experts (in agency repositories) and by academia, nonprofit organizations, and industry (via the US Life Cycle Inventory Database). The Federal LCA Commons Technical Working Group is continuously improving the standardization of data documentation, formatting, and nomenclature to ensure lossless data loading and accurate data representation. This report and appendixes include the following: 1) An introduction to data-driven Buy Clean and decarbonization initiatives at the federal level; 2) The current status and associated challenges with LCA data and EPD standards and comparability; 3) Opportunities for the Federal LCA Commons to support conformance with the ACLCA 2022 PCR Open Standard and provide resources to implement the Federal Sustainability Plan, Buy Clean Program, and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) sustainability goals and objectives. To date, the Federal LCA Commons is the result of coordinated work by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST). The Federal LCA Commons will continue to combine databases from the collaborating agencies while remaining a public resource. There are several initiatives among the collaborating agencies to expand the Federal LCA Commons and dedicated federal funding and resources could accelerate and strengthen these initiatives.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Louisville Communities LEAP Engagement: Improving Energy Efficiency in Affordable Housing [Slides]

This presentation outlines the initial results from a year-plus engagement between the National Renewable Energy Lab and Louisville, Kentucky through the U.S. Department of Energy's Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program) effort. Louisville, as represented by the Louisville Metro Government, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and the Metropolitan Housing Coalition, sought technical assistance from the labs to address energy usage in its residential housing stock as part of efforts to reduce community-wide emissions and high energy burdens throughout its community. The Communities LEAP scope of work included an energy efficiency analysis that leveraged ResStock data to identify key efficient technologies to explore for retrofitting Louisville's housing stock; technical support around developing a community benchmarking ordinance to help Louisville track its progress towards reducing energy usage; a workforce development overview to help Louisville ensure a sufficient and equitable distribution of clean-energy-related jobs supported by its energy efficiency efforts; a policy analysis component to track energy efficiency related policies Louisville may be interested in adapting from peer communities across the country; and a financing analysis component to identify opportunities to lower the barrier to clean energy adoption.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
NASA NTRS2012

The GreenLab Research Facility: A Micro-Grid Integrating Production, Consumption and Storage of Clean Energy

There is a large gap between the production and demand for energy from alternative fuel and alternative renewable energy sources. The NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) has initiated a laboratory-pilot study that concentrates on using biofuels as viable alternative fuel resources for the field of aviation, as well as, utilizing wind and solar technologies as alternative renewable energy resources, and in addition, the use of pumped water for storage of energy that can be retrieved through hydroelectric generation. This paper describes the GreenLab Research Facility and its power and energy sources with .recommendations for worldwide expansion and adoption of the concept of such a facility

McDowell Bomani, Bilal Mark↗
DOE OSTI2024

Fabrication, Modeling, and Testing of a Prototype Thermal Energy Storage Containment

Increasing penetration of variable renewable energy resources requires the deployment of energy storage at a range of durations. Long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies will fulfill the need to firm variable renewable energy resource output year round; lithium-ion batteries are uneconomical at these durations. Thermal energy storage (TES) is one promising technology for LDES applications because of its siting flexibility and ease of scaling. Particle-based TES systems use low-cost solid particles that have higher temperature limits than the molten salts used in traditional concentrated solar power systems. A key component in particle-based TES systems is the containment silo for the high-temperature (>1100 degrees C) particles. This study combined experimental testing and computational modeling methods to design and characterize the performance of a particle containment silo for LDES applications. A laboratory-scale silo prototype was built and validated the congruent transient finite element analysis (FEA) model. The performance of a commercial-scale silo was then characterized using the validated model. The commercial-scale model predicted a storage efficiency above 95% after 5 days of storage with a design storage temperature of 1200 degrees C. Insulation material and concrete temperature limits were considered as well. The validation of the methodology means the FEA model can simulate a range of scenarios for future applications. This work supports the development of a promising LDES technology with implications for grid-scale electrical energy storage, but also for thermal energy storage for industrial process heating applications.

clean energy↗
DOE OSTI2020

NRIC Strategy for Advancing Nuclear Integrated Energy Systems

Integrated energy systems (IES) combine low-carbon energy sources to meet demand for clean energy in multiple forms across multiple sectors of economy. IES create opportunities to cost-effectively dispatch generation resources to balance electricity supply and demand. In addition to producing electricity, IES increase the value of non-emitting energy sources by integrating generation technologies with industrial processes to efficiently produce commodities that benefit the manufacturing, industrial processing, and transportation industries. Nuclear energy technology is key to enabling these benefits. Advanced nuclear reactors capable of producing high-quality heat, electricity, and radiation, will play a foundational role in IES of the future.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗