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At least 811 records · Page 45
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Atmospheric Boundary Layer-Wind Farm Interactions Field Campaign Report

The American WAKE ExperimeNt (AWAKEN) was a field campaign in northern Oklahoma intended to analyze the potential influence of wind farms and their collective wakes on the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL), wind power production, and turbine structural loads. This report summarizes the deployment of instruments by the University of Oklahoma (OU), National Atmospheric and Atmospheric Administration National Severe Storms Laboratory (NOAA NSSL), and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) during AWAKEN. Two Collaborative Lower Atmosphere Profiling Systems (CLAMPS) and LLNL ZephIR profiling lidars were co-deployed from October 3, 2022, to December 20, 2022 (winter campaign). At the end of the winter campaign, both ZephIR lidars were moved to different AWAKEN sites to be a part of a targeted wake study at the King Plains wind farm. The two CLAMPS were redeployed for a second observation period from July 1st, 2023, to September 28, 2023 (summer campaign; the ZephIR lidars were not co-located with CLAMPS).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

A comparison of methods for assessing power output in non-uniform onshore wind farms

Wind resource assessments are used to estimate a wind farm's power production during the planning process. It is important that these estimates are accurate, as they can impact financing agreements, transmission planning, and environmental targets. Here, we analyze the challenges in wind power estimation for onshore farms. Turbine wake effects are a strong determinant of farm power production. With given input wind conditions, wake losses typically cause downstream turbines to produce significantly less power than upstream turbines. These losses have been modeled extensively and are well understood under certain conditions. Most notably, validation of different model types has favored offshore farms. Models that capture the dynamics of offshore wind conditions do not necessarily perform equally as well for onshore wind farms. We analyze the capabilities of several different methods for estimating wind farm power production in 2 onshore farms with non-uniform layouts. We compare the Jensen model to a number of statistical models, to meteorological downscaling techniques, and to using no model at all. In conclusion, we show that the complexities of some onshore farms result in wind conditions that are not accurately modeled by the Jensen wake decay techniques and that statistical methods have some strong advantages in practice.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Iowa: Iowa's Clean Energy Resources and Economy [Brochure]

By harnessing its vast natural resources, Iowa has become a leader in renewable energy production. Iowa was the largest producer of ethanol in the United States in 2011—accounting for more than a quarter of the nation’s fuel ethanol production. Iowa, home to nine wind industry manufacturing facilities in 2010, ranks second in the country in installed wind capacity, with 4,322 megawatts installed at the end of 2011. This installed wind capacity is estimated, in an average year, to supply approximately 20% of Iowa’s entire in-state electricity generation. Iowa’s high utilization of wind power has propelled the state to third in the nation for total installed renewable electricity capacity. Additionally, Iowa’s potential for using biopower produced from solid materials is second in the country, behind only Illinois. Iowa owes part of its success to its early policy support for renewable energy. The first capacity target in Iowa’s Alternative Energy Law, passed in 1983, was met in 1997. This early success led to former Iowa Governor Vilsack’s 2003 call for Iowa to deploy 1,000 MW of renewable energy—a goal that was met in 2006. Although Iowa’s renewable energy capacity requirements are met mostly by wind, other eligible resources include solar, waste management, resource recovery, refuse-derived fuel, agricultural crops or residues, wood-burning facilities, and small hydropower facilities. The state has also made a strong commitment to energy efficiency. Iowa’s investor-owned utilities more than doubled the budgets of their efficiency programs from 2002 to 2007, passing the $\$$100 million mark in 2006.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2020

Scalable Wind Turbine Generator Bearing Fault Prediction Using Machine Learning: A Case Study

Operation and maintenance (O&M) costs for wind turbines pose a risk to competitiveness and asset owners. With machine-learning technologies and digitalization rapidly maturing, the wind industry is actively investigating these new technologies to optimize O&M practices and reduce costs. This paper reviews recent work on machine-learning approaches to generator bearing failure prediction and presents a relevant real-world case study through a collaboration between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Envision Digital Corporation. In the case study, we evaluate the performance of representative machine-learning algorithms for predicting wind turbine generator bearing failures. Operational supervisory control and data acquisition data from one wind power plant was used to train and test the machine-learning models. The investigated data channels are chosen based on whether physically they reflect the failed generator bearing conditions and the component historical usage, including both environmental and operational conditions. Benefits and drawbacks of different methods are identified.

generator bearing failures↗
DOE OSTI2016

Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation Study of Active Power Control in Wind Plants

This paper presents an analysis performed on a wind plant's ability to provide active power control services using a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics-based wind plant simulator. This approach allows examination of the impact on wind turbine wake interactions within a wind plant on performance of the wind plant controller. The paper investigates several control methods for improving performance in waked conditions. One method uses wind plant wake controls, an active field of research in which wind turbine control systems are coordinated to account for their wakes, to improve the overall performance. Results demonstrate the challenge of providing active power control in waked conditions but also the potential methods for improving this performance.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Consumptive Water Use from Electricity Generation in the Southwest under Alternative Climate, Technology, and Policy Futures

This research assesses climate, technological, and policy impacts on consumptive water use from electricity generation in the Southwest over a planning horizon of nearly a century. We employed an integrated modeling framework taking into account feedbacks between climate change, air temperature and humidity, and consequent power plant water requirements. These direct impacts of climate change on water consumption by 2095 differ with technology improvements, cooling systems, and policy constraints, ranging from a 3–7% increase over scenarios that do not incorporate ambient air impacts. Upon additional factors being changed that alter electricity generation, water consumption increases by up to 8% over the reference scenario by 2095. With high penetration of wet recirculating cooling, consumptive water required for low-carbon electricity generation via fossil fuels will likely exacerbate regional water pressure as droughts become more common and population increases. Adaptation strategies to lower water use include the use of advanced cooling technologies and greater dependence on solar and wind. Water consumption may be reduced by 50% in 2095 from the reference, requiring an increase in dry cooling shares to 35–40%. Alternatively, the same reduction could be achieved through photovoltaic and wind power generation constituting 60% of the grid, consistent with an increase of over 250% in technology learning rates.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

The inclusion of uncertainty in circularity transition modeling: A case study on wind turbine blade end-of-life management

The transition to a more circular economy (CE) is complex and hard to predict, including in sustainable energy technologies. Many sources of uncertainty make it challenging to model CE scenarios and their potential benefits. As an example, the high variability in costs and revenues of different recycling options makes future wind turbine blade recycling highly uncertain. To better understand this challenge, the circular economy, life cycle assessment and visualization (CELAVI) framework - a discrete event simulation and life cycle assessment framework - is modified to incorporate uncertainty analysis capabilities. Moreover, a 3-step procedure that covers different aspects of uncertainty in CE studies and includes a Monte-Carlo analysis is proposed. The procedure is tested in a case study on wind turbine blade recycling using CELAVI. Results highlight that grinding and landfilling costs are the most influential parameters for wind power circularity. The model's output coefficients of variation (when input parameter uncertainties are propagated) are between 92% and 384% depending on the indicator. The approach developed in this study may help researchers and decision-makers who study circularity prioritize their data collection effort. Finally, our method contributes to a mounting yet critical body of research: the measurement of uncertainty in circularity transitions.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

RELIABILITY BASED DESIGN OF FIXED FOUNDATION WIND TURBINES

Recent analysis of offshore wind turbine foundations using both applicable API and IEC standards show that the total load demand from wind and waves is greatest in wave driven storms. Further, analysis of overturning moment loads (OTM) reveal that impact forces exerted by breaking waves are the largest contributor to OTM in big storms at wind speeds above the operating range of 25 m/s. Currently, no codes or standards for offshore wind power generators have been adopted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) for use on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Current design methods based on allowable stress design (ASD) incorporate the uncertainty in the variation of loads transferred to the foundation and geotechnical capacity of the soil and rock to support the loads is incorporated into a factor of safety. Sources of uncertainty include spatial and temporal variation of engineering properties, reliability of property measurements applicability and sufficiency of sampling and testing methods, modeling errors, and variability of estimated load predictions. In ASD these sources of variability are generally given qualitative rather than quantitative consideration. The IEC 61400‐3 design standard for offshore wind turbines is based on ASD methods. Load and resistance factor design (LRFD) methods are being increasingly used in the design of structures. Uncertainties such as those listed above can be included quantitatively into the LRFD process. In LRFD load factors and resistance factors are statistically based. This type of analysis recognizes that there is always some probability of failure and enables the probability of failure to be quantified. This paper presents an integrated approach consisting of field observations and numerical simulation to establish the distribution of loads from breaking waves to support the LRFD of fixed offshore foundations.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1977

Design of single-winding energy-storage reactors for dc-to-dc converters using air-gapped magnetic-core structures

A procedure is presented for designing air-gapped energy-storage reactors for nine different dc-to-dc converters resulting from combinations of three single-winding power stages for voltage stepup, current stepup and voltage stepup/current stepup and three controllers with control laws that impose constant-frequency, constant transistor on-time and constant transistor off-time operation. The analysis, based on the energy-transfer requirement of the reactor, leads to a simple relationship for the required minimum volume of the air gap. Determination of this minimum air gap volume then permits the selection of either an air gap or a cross-sectional core area. Having picked one parameter, the minimum value of the other immediately leads to selection of the physical magnetic structure. Other analytically derived equations are used to obtain values for the required turns, the inductance, and the maximum rms winding current. The design procedure is applicable to a wide range of magnetic material characteristics and physical configurations for the air-gapped magnetic structure.

Ohri, A. K.↗
DOE OSTI2017

On the Existence of the Kolmogorov Inertial Range in the Terrestrial Magnetosheath Turbulence

In the solar wind, power spectral density (PSD) of the magnetic field fluctuations generally follow the so-called Kolmogorov spectrum f {sup −5/3} in the inertial range, where the dynamics is thought to be dominated by nonlinear interactions between counter-propagating incompressible Alfvén wave parquets. These features are thought to be ubiquitous in space plasmas. The present study gives a new and more complex picture of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence as observed in the terrestrial magnetosheath. The study uses three years of in situ data from the Cluster mission to explore the nature of the magnetic fluctuations at MHD scales in different locations within the magnetosheath, including flanks and subsolar regions. It is found that the magnetic field fluctuations at MHD scales generally have a PSD close to f {sup −1} (shallower than the Kolmogorov one f {sup −5/3}) down to the ion characteristic scale, which recalls the energy-containing scales of solar wind turbulence. The Kolmogorov spectrum is observed only away from the bow shock toward the flank and the magnetopause regions in 17% of the analyzed time intervals. Measuring the magnetic compressibility, it is shown that only a fraction (35%) of the observed Kolmogorov spectra was populated by shear Alfvénic fluctuations, whereas the majority of the events (65%) was found to be dominated by compressible magnetosonic-like fluctuations, which contrasts with well-known turbulence properties in the solar wind. This study gives a first comprehensive view of the origin of the f {sup −1} and the transition to the Kolmogorov inertial range; both questions remain controversial in solar wind turbulence.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Great Lakes Wind Energy Challenges and Opportunities Assessment

Many issues associated with wind development in the Great Lakes will require solutions different from those developed for offshore wind in ocean states and may not fully benefit from the industry learnings of nearby states. As a result, technology readiness and cost reduction for Great Lakes Wind (GLW) energy generation is likely to be delayed relative to other regions without a substantial, targeted GLW research campaign, and proactive stakeholder engagement in the region at all levels. Failure to conduct the necessary research to lower GLW costs in the near term could limit its contribution to the Nation's decarbonization goals by 2035, and could potentially raise long term energy prices in Great Lakes states if demand for renewable energy continues to accelerate. The overall objective of a research program such as that described in this report would be to enable the realization of commercial GLW before 2035. With the aim of ensuring that prospective development of GLW is conducted efficiently, safely, and coordinated in the best interests of the local residents and stakeholders, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) tasked the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to assist in (a) developing an improved understanding of offshore wind power's development potential in the Great Lakes, (b) identifying the key issues that need to be resolved for this potential to be achieved, and (c) defining a comprehensive research program to address and resolve these issues. This report presents the results of NREL's effort to address these needs.

cost modeling↗
NASA NTRS2009

A Compton-thick Wind in the High Luminosity Quasar, PDS 456

PDS 456 is a nearby (z=0.184), luminous (L(sub bol) approximately equal to 10(exp 47) ergs(exp -1) type I quasar. A deep 190 ks Suzaku observation in February 2007 revealed the complex, broad band X-ray spectrum of PDS 456. The Suzaku spectrum exhibits highly statistically significant absorption features near 9 keV in the quasar rest-frame. We show that the most plausible origin of the absorption is from blue-shifted resonance (1s-2p) transitions of hydrogen-like iron (at 6.97 keV in the rest frame). This indicates that a highly ionized outflow may be present moving at near relativistic velocities (0.26-0.31c). A possible hard X-ray excess is detected above 15 keV with HXD (at 99.8% confidence), which may arise from high column density gas (N(sub H) greater than 10(exp 24)cm(exp -2) partially covering the X-ray emission, or through strong Compton reflection. Here we propose that the iron K-shell absorption in PDS 456 is associated with a thick, possibly clumpy outflow, covering about 20% of 4(pi) steradian solid angle. The outflow is likely launched from the inner accretion disk, within 15-100 gravitational radii of the black hole. The kinetic power of the outflow may be similar to the bolometric luminosity of PDS 456. Such a powerful wind could have a significant effect on the co-evolution of the host galaxy and its supermassive black hole, through feedback.

Reeves, J. N.↗
DOE OSTI2019

The Verification and Validation Strategy Within the Second Wind Forecast Improvement Project (WFIP 2)

The Wind Forecast Improvement Project 2 (WFIP2), in the complex terrain of the Columbia Gorge, focuses on a set of weather phenomena that poses particular challenges for wind and wind power forecasting. It further aims to understand and improve the skill of weather forecast models, particularly the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR), in complex terrain. The project also includes an extensive field campaign in the Columbia River Gorge, during which data from many different instruments were collected. WFIP2 is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Scientists from four U.S. national laboratories, NOAA, Vaisala, and universities contribute to the project with wide and varied interests and skill sets. Therefore, coordinated verification & validation (V&V) efforts across these members allows for the development of a clear picture of model improvements and scientific findings within WFIP2. The WFIP2 V&V team is tasked with providing tools, methods, and guidance to enable repeatable, metrics-based assessment of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and associated modeling suites for analysis and forecasting of mesoscale weather phenomena that are important for wind energy in the Columbia River Gorge and other parts of the continental United States. This report summarizes what has been worked on and accomplished within the duration of the WFIP2 project, 4 years, by the V&V team.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Outcomes of the DOE Workshop on Atmospheric Challenges for the Wind Energy Industry

The U.S. Department of Energy-funded Mesoscale-to-Microscale Coupling (MMC) project team planned and conducted a virtual Workshop on Atmospheric Challenges for the Wind Energy Industry on October 19 and 20, 2020. The goal of the workshop was to forge a dialog with the community, including industry representatives, on how modeling tools are currently being used, the present active atmospheric modeling research in support of wind energy, and required advancements in capabilities and technology to continue to advance wind energy deployment. The workshop was planned in collaboration with an industry advisory panel that included representatives from wind power plant developers, turbine manufacturers, and companies that provide resource assessment and forecasting services. The format of the workshop included panels from government research sponsors, visionaries from industry, and mixed panels of researchers discussing research status and needs. A shared keynote presentation from the Technical University of Denmark experts anchored the second day of the workshop. An emphasis was placed on understanding the research needs in the offshore environment. In addition, breakout opportunities were provided each day. On the first day, the breakout discussions addressed predesigned questions configured to elicit participants’ thoughts on needed research directions. The second-day breakouts treated three important technical topics through a combination of presentations and group conversations. Each workshop participant chose their breakout preference from among downscaling details, modeling for turbines, and using artificial intelligence for atmospheric modeling. The discussions were robust and productive. The outcomes of the workshop include archiving a series of recommendations from industry and the research community on research directions required to further advance wind energy deployment. Discussions confirmed the need for high-fidelity modeling but that there are specific areas of applicability and other areas where the time and cost of computation is prohibitive. In those cases, the high-fidelity models can inform low-order models that are more practical for real-time or widely deployed applications. Industry must consider the financial cost of performing more expensive modeling approaches, but industry engineers and researchers are using these approaches where there appears to be a return on investment. An emerging type of low-order model is based on machine learning (ML). Participants confirmed that there are many atmospheric phenomena that need to be modeled better, including low-level jets, cold air outbreaks, land-sea induced circulations, diurnal variability, thin stable boundary layers, dynamic changes such as from frontal passage, interaction of wakes and blockage, and more. For the offshore environment, there is wide agreement that some level of ocean-wave-atmospheric coupling is necessary to capture variations in rotor-level winds needed to plan and operate offshore wind plants. Another recurring recommendation is that more observations are needed, particularly for the offshore environment. Those observations should consider the needs for model improvement, both for physically based models and for ML models. Observations must capture atmospheric profiles of variables that are important to understanding and modeling atmospheric and oceanic phenomena that impact boundary layer winds. Models must be validated with data and the uncertainty quantified, particularly those that are sensitive to initial and boundary conditions. Finally, a repeated request was to consider the holistic needs of hybrid plants of wind, solar, and storage resources because those types of plants are likely to be the wave of the future. In addition, industry wishes to understand impacts of the resource under a changing climate for long-term planning.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

ULTRAFAST OUTFLOWS FROM BLACK HOLE MERGERS WITH A MINIDISK

Recently, the direct detection of gravitational waves from black hole (BH) mergers was announced by the Advanced LIGO Collaboration. Multi-messenger counterparts of stellar-mass BH mergers are of interest, and it had been suggested that a small disk or celestial body may be involved in the binary of two BHs. To test such possibilities, we consider the fate of a wind powered by an active minidisk in a relatively short, super-Eddington accretion episode onto a BH with ∼10–100 solar masses. We show that its thermal emission could be seen as a fast optical transient with the duration from hours to days. We also find that the coasting outflow forms external shocks due to interaction with the interstellar medium, whose synchrotron emission might be expected in the radio band on a timescale of years. Finally, we also discuss a possible jet component and the associated high-energy neutrino emission as well as ultra-high-energy cosmic-ray acceleration.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Including operational aspects in the planning of power systems with large amounts of variable generation: A review of modeling approaches

In the past, power system planning was based on meeting the load duration curve at minimum cost. The increasing share of variable generation (VG) makes operational constraints more important in the planning problem, and there is more and more interest in considering aspects such as sufficient ramping capability, sufficient reserve procurement, power system stability, storage behavior, and the integration of other energy sectors often through demand response assets. In VG integration studies, several methods have been applied to combine the planning and operational timescales. We present a four-level categorization for the modeling methods, in order of increasing complexity: (1a) investment model only, (1b) operational model only, (2) unidirectionally soft-linked investment and operational models, (3a) bidirectionally soft-linked investment and operational models, (3b) operational model with an investment update algorithm, and (4) co-optimization of investments and operation. The review shows that using a low temporal resolution or only few representative days will not suffice in order to determine the optimal generation portfolio. In addition, considering operational effects proves to be important in order to get a more optimal generation portfolio and more realistic estimations of system costs. However, operational details appear to be less significant than the temporal representation. Furthermore, the benefits and impacts of more advanced modeling techniques on the resulting generation capacity mix significantly depend on the system properties. Thus, the choice of the model should depend on the purpose of the study as well as on system characteristics.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2015

Revolution…Now The Future Arrives for Five Clean Energy Technologies – 2015 Update

In 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released the Revolution Now report, highlighting four transformational technologies: land-based wind power, silicon photovoltaic (PV) solar modules, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and electric vehicles (EVs). That study and its 2014 update showed how dramatic reductions in cost are driving a surge in consumer, industrial, and commercial adoption for these clean energy technologies—as well as yearly progress. In addition to presenting the continued progress made over the last year in these areas, this year’s update goes further. Two separate sections now cover large, central, utility-scale PV plants and smaller, rooftop, distributed PV systems to highlight how both have achieved significant deployment nationwide, and have done so through different innovations, such as easier access to capital for utility-scale PV and reductions of non-hardware costs and third-party ownership for distributed PV. Along with these core technologies

Revolution, future, clean, energy, wind, pv, solar↗