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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 793 records · Page 44

Energy storage solutions to decarbonize electricity through enhanced capacity expansion modelling

To meet ambitious global decarbonization goals, electricity system planning and operations will change fundamentally. With increasing reliance on variable renewable energy resources, energy storage is likely to play a critical accompanying role to help balance generation and consumption patterns. As grid planners, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, policy makers, regulators and other key stakeholders commonly use capacity expansion modelling to inform energy policy and investment decisions, it is crucial that these processes capture the value of energy storage in energy-system decarbonization. Here we conduct an extensive review of literature on the representation of energy storage in capacity expansion modelling. We identify challenges related to enhancing modelling capabilities to inform decarbonization policies and electricity system investments, and to improve societal outcomes throughout the clean energy transition. Additionally, we further identify corresponding research activities that can help overcome these challenges and conclude by highlighting tangible real-world outcomes that will result from pursuing these research activities. Capacity expansion modelling (CEM) approaches need to account for the value of energy storage in energy-system decarbonization. A new Review considers the representation of energy storage in the CEM literature and identifies approaches to overcome the challenges such approaches face when it comes to better informing policy and investment decisions.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

A Machine‐Learning‐Assisted Stochastic Cloud Population Model as a Parameterization of Cumulus Convection

Abstract A machine‐learning‐assisted stochastic cloud population model is coupled with the Advanced Research Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to represent fluctuations in the cloud‐base mass flux associated with the life cycles and interactions among cumulus convection cells. In this cloud population model, the size distribution and the associated cloud‐base mass flux of the convective cells are related to their previous state and to the change in the total convective area via a transition function. The convective area tendency in turn is assumed to depend on the cloud‐base mass flux that is resolved by the host WRF model. The transition function is represented by a single hidden‐layer neural network trained by the evolution of convective cell size distributions in a 1‐km grid‐spacing WRF simulation run over the Australian Monsoon region. At every grid point of the host model, the cloud population model predicts the cell size and cloud‐base mass flux distributions from which a random sample of cells is fed to an entraining parcel model that calculates precipitation as well as the associated liquid water potential temperature and total moisture tendencies. These tendencies are averaged over the cells and provided to the host model. Several regional simulations are performed over tropical and midlatitude domains to test this as a potential approach to scale‐aware parameterization. It is shown that such an approach could be a new promising path to simulating realistic precipitation statistics and propagation of precipitation associated with the Madden‐Julian Oscillation while maintaining realistic depictions of the diurnal cycle over both land and ocean.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Computational Math Problems for a Clean Energy Future

Cutting edge computational mathematics are ubiquitous in renewable energy research. Problems in resilient and reliable electric grid operations, infrastructure planning, wind farm yaw control, and more demand sophisticated and scalable computational tools that enable the transition of renewable energy technologies from proof of concept to deployment into our energy system. The mission of the Computational Science Center at NREL is to lead the lab's efforts to solve energy challenges using high-performance computing (HPC), computational science, applied mathematics, scientific data management, visualization, and informatics. In this poster, we provide a short overview of three areas of computational mathematics research at NREL: wind power scenario generation for stochastic grid operations and infrastructure planning, improved rational function approximations for electromagnetic transients codes, and wind farm yaw control using a combination of the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) and reinforcement learning (RL). Increasing penetrations of renewable energy into power grids motivate the investigation of new approaches to characterizing uncertainty for five-minute economic dispatch problems. Similarly, as the penetration of distributed energy resources on power grids increases, it becomes important to revisit our methods of modelling transient phenomena, i.e. electromagnetic transients programs. Finally, the combination of ADMM and RL for wind farm yaw control presented here can potentially increase the efficiency of the deployed distributed controllers by orders of magnitude.

ADMM↗

The generation of gridded emissions data for CMIP6

Abstract. Spatially distributed anthropogenic and open burning emissions are fundamental data needed by Earth system models. We describe the methods used for generating gridded datasets produced for use by the modeling community, particularly for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. The development of three sets of gridded data for historical open burning, historical anthropogenic, and future scenarios was coordinated to produce consistent data over 1750–2100. Historical data up to 2014 were provided with annual resolution and future scenario data in 10-year intervals. Emissions are provided on a sectoral basis, along with additional files for speciated non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs). An automated framework was developed to produce these datasets to ensure that they are reproducible and facilitate future improvements. We discuss the methodologies used to produce these data along with limitations and potential for future work.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Blockchain cybersecurity audit platform

A cybersecurity distributed ledger is provided herein for managing, tracking, auditing, and securing assets in a power infrastructure. The cybersecurity distributed ledger may include a blockchain, and may combine with smart contract or smart negotiation technology, such as in a permissioned proof of authority blockchain. The cybersecurity distributed ledger may manage the complete life cycle of a grid asset, from asset requirement and specification, through production, testing, deployment, maintenance, and retirement. The cybersecurity distributed ledger may create an immutable record of the grid asset, which may be audited for regulatory compliance or build or development compliance. Further, the cybersecurity distributed ledger may store unique identifying information for a grid asset, which may be used to detect a security breach or other tampering with a grid asset. The cybersecurity distributed ledger may also track control or ownership of the grid asset, as well as changes or updates to the grid asset.

Mylrea, Michael E.↗

I/O performance studies of analysis workloads on production and dedicated resources at CERN

The recent evolutions of the analysis frameworks and physics data formats of the LHC experiments provide the opportunity of using central analysis facilities with a strong focus on interactivity and short turnaround times, to complement the more common distributed analysis on the Grid. In order to plan for such facilities, it is essential to know in detail the performance of the combination of a given analysis framework, of a specific analysis and of the installed computing and storage resources. This contribution describes performance studies performed at CERN, using the EOS disk-based storage, either directly or through an XCache instance, from both batch resources and highperformance compute nodes which could be used to build an analysis facility. A variety of benchmarks, both synthetic and based on real-world physics analyses and their corresponding input datasets, are utilized. In particular, the RNTuple format from the ROOT project is put to the test and compared to the latest version of the TTree format, and the impact of caches is assessed. In addition, we assessed the difference in performance between the use of storage system specific protocols, like XRootd, and FUSE. The results of this study are intended to be a valuable input in the design of analysis facilities, at CERN and elsewhere.

Sciabà, Andrea↗

DC Link Voltage Balancing of the Active Front-End for the Extreme Fast Charging Stations

One of the most important challenges of the extreme fast charging (XFC) stations is to balance the DC link voltages of the active front-end (AFE). The multilevel cascaded H-bridge (CHB) converter is a great topology for the AFE applications due to the high power density, low total harmonic distortion (THD), and a low number of active and passive components. In this paper, a technique is proposed for balancing DC-link capacitor voltages of a three-phase CHB converter, when a phase shiftPWM modulation technique is used on all cells of the converter. To reach this goal, the redundant states of the CHB converters are used for generating different AC voltage levels by sorting the voltages of the converters. The proposed voltage balancing technique uses the principles that are employed for the DC link voltage balancing of the low-frequency modulation techniques to balance the DC link voltages of the CHB converter. As shown in this paper, the DC link voltages of the CHB converter can accurately be balanced very fast without using PI controllers, which are used in the conventional DC link voltage balancing techniques. A controller also is proposed which will be used to control the dq currents of the CHB converter. To verify the advantages of the proposed technique, the simulation results of the proposed technique will be carried out in a three-phase 7-cell CHB AFE.

Grid-tied converters, cascaded H-bridge, DC link v↗

Machine Learning Based Network Parameter Estimation Using AMI Data

The expansion of distribution power system and the growing penetration of distributed energy resources present new challenges for situational awareness. Calibrating the extended system model with sensor measurements and maintaining the usability is critical for utilities. This paper presents a distribution network parameter estimation (DNPE) approach using machine learning (ML) and metering data that improve the quality of extended distribution power system modeling. The reliability model can improve the ability of endpoint data to be translated into network-level situational awareness in real time and help distribution system operators (DSOs) solve branch flow and voltage problems. In addition, a data analytic and automate processing scheme is proposed to improve the sensor data quality and prevent misleading information. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified with actual advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) data on a real utility feeder model, while considering the higher penetration of photovoltaic power generation. The test of DNPE and study results are demonstrated in this paper.

Parameter estimation, machine learning, power dist↗

Employing Interacting Qubits for Distributed Microgrid Control

To empower flexible and scalable operations, distributed control of multi-inverter microgrids, based on classical communication networks among distributed energy resources, has attracted considerable attention as it can guarantee synchronization and provide suitable remedies to the problem of improper power sharing. Notwithstanding this, resilience of the current schemes on classical communication makes microgrids vulnerable to cyber attacks. Inspired by recent revolutionary breakthroughs in quantum communication, in this paper, we devise a novel synchronization mechanism. We extend the synchronization framework utilized in distributed control algorithms to networks of quantum systems by generating pinning terms and coupling mechanism for the new synchronization rule via exploiting proper quantum jump operators and observables, and show that the quantum system will converge to a time-variant target state. Our devised quantum distributed controller (QDC) gives rise to a novel quantum communication scheme for distributed control of microgrids and enables microgrids to exploit the state-of-the-art quantum communication frameworks as communication infrastructure. Finally, test results on two representative AC and DC networked microgrids validate the efficacy and universality of the quantum distributed control.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Pricing and Energy Trading in Peer-to-Peer Zero Marginal-Cost Microgrids

Efforts to utilize 100% renewable energy in community microgrids require new approaches to energy markets and transactions to efficiently address periods of scarce energy supply. In this paper we contribute to the promising approach of peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading in two main ways: analysis of a centralized, welfare-maximizing economic dispatch that characterizes optimal price and allocations, and a novel P2P system for negotiating energy trades that yields physically feasible and at least weakly Pareto-optimal outcomes. Our main results are 1) that optimal pricing is insufficient to induce agents with batteries to take optimal actions, 2) a novel P2P algorithm to addresses this while keeping private information, 3) a formal proof that this algorithm converges to the centralized solution in the case of two agents negotiating for a single period, and 4) numerical simulations of the P2P algorithm performance with up to 10 agents and 24 periods that show it converges on average to total welfare within 0.1% of the social optimum in on the order of 10s to 100s of iterations, increasing with the number of agents, time periods, and total storage capacity.

batteries↗

Unified Communication Optimization Strategies for Sparse Triangular Solver on CPU and GPU Clusters

This paper presents a unified communication optimization framework for sparse triangular solve (SpTRSV) algorithms on CPU and GPU clusters. The framework builds upon a 3D communication-avoiding (CA) layout of Px × Py × Pz processes that divides a sparse matrix into Pz submatrices, each handled by a Px × Py 2D grid with block-cyclic distribution. We propose three communication optimization strategies: First, a new 3D SpTRSV algorithm is developed, which trades the inter-grid communication and synchronization with replicated computation. This design requires only one inter-grid synchronization, and the inter-grid communication is efficiently implemented with sparse allreduce operations. Second, broadcast and reduction communication trees are used to reduce message latency of the intra-grid 2D communication on CPU clusters. Finally, we leverage GPU-initiated one-sided communication to implement the communication trees on GPU clusters. With these nested inter- and intra-grid communication optimization strategies, the proposed 3D SpTRSV algorithm can attain up to 3.45x speedups compared to the baseline 3D SpTRSV algorithm using up to 2048 Cori Haswell CPU cores. In addition, the proposed GPU 3D SpTRSV algorithm can achieve up to 6.5x speedups compared to the proposed CPU 3D SpTRSV algorithm with Pz up to 64. Finally it is remarkable that the proposed GPU 3D SpTRSV can scale to 256 GPUs using the Perlmutter system while the existing 2D SpTRSV algorithm can only scale up to 4 GPUs.

Sao, Piyush↗

InfraSys (Infrastructure Systems) [SWR-24-42]

This package implements a data store for components and time series in support of Python-based modeling packages. While it is designed to support teams modeling transmission and distribution systems for electrical grids, it can be used by any package that needs to store components (e.g., generators and buses) that have quantities (e.g., power and voltage) which may vary over time. The package was inspired by InfrastructureSystems.jl (https://github.com/NREL-Sienna/InfrastructureSystems.jl).

Thom, Daniel↗

An Analysis Framework for Distribution Network DER Integration Analysis in India: Distributed Solar in Tamil Nadu

This report is part of a two-part series that represents a year-long collaboration with the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) on power sector planning. The first report in this series, the Pathways for Tamil Nadu’s Electric Power Sector 2017-2030 report outlines NREL’s work with TANGEDCO's electricity sector planning department to develop a model of the State’s power system and evaluate multiple scenarios of system growth given resource constraints, costs of technologies, and power sector policies. This second report in this series focuses on the rapidly transforming distribution network in the State. The report outlines a framework developed by NREL with TANGEDCO's distribution utility to quickly and accurately analyze the impacts of integrating renewable energy, specifically rooftop solar PV onto Tamil Nadu's distribution system. Together these studies help to prepare Tamil Nadu for a rapidly transforming power system.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Combinatorial Evaluation of Physical Feature Engineering, Classical Machine Learning, and Deep Learning Models for Synchrophasor Data at Scale

A major objective of the project was to train and evaluate the effectiveness of multiple event and anomaly detection, identification and classification deep temporal learning models for processing of real-time phasor measurement unit (PMU) data streams. A vast dataset, consisting of two years of phasor measurements from all three U.S. Interconnections, was curated and released by the Department of Energy (DOE) through Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The dataset also included an event log that provided event times and types (e.g. generator trips, line trips, planned service events, transformer operations, etc.). Our analysis of this dataset addressed six (6) of the eleven (11) research priorities identified in Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) DE-FOA-0001861 “Big Data Analysis of Synchrophasor Data” (FOA 1861). Rather than being limited to pre-determined specific algorithms, this project relied on the uniquely structured, highly performant underlying time series database capabilities of the PredictiveGrid platform to assess the vast dataset utilizing a wide variety of algorithms.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗