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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Lessons Learned from the Energy to Communities (E2C) Peer-Learning Cohort on Engaging with Electric Utilities for Successful Local Partnerships

NLR designed and led a six-month peer-learning cohort from July through December 2025 on “Engaging With Electric Utilities for Successful Local Partnerships” as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy to Communities (E2C) program. Representatives from 15 local and regional governments from across the United States participated in monthly workshops covering best practices for engaging with their utilities to advance their own energy goals. This document shares key takeaways, lessons learned, and resources from the cohort that may be useful to local governments, regional governments, or Tribes.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Offshore Wind Energy and Communities: Perspectives on Local Impacts [Slides]

In this webinar hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy's WINDExchange initiative, an expert panel discusses the myriad ways that offshore wind may impact communities. Impacted communities can take a variety of forms, from coastal communities hosting ports and cable landings to ocean users such as commercial fishermen, and can experience a range of environmental, economic, cultural, and other impacts related to offshore wind energy. This webinar explores these topics from diverse perspectives and provides an introduction to the local footprints of this emerging industry.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Case Study about Energy and Cost Impacts for Different Community Scenarios Using a Community-Scale Building Energy Modeling Tool

The United States building sector consumed approximately 75% of electricity in 2019. By implementing renewable energy technologies and control strategies into buildings, future buildings will serve as energy generators as well as consumers. To accommodate this transition, communications among buildings and between buildings and the grid could provide more possibilities to optimize the energy performance of buildings. This paper develops a community-scale building energy model tool and conducts a case study adopting behind-the-meter distributed energy resources, sharing energy in different buildings, and using different electricity tariff structures. Three scenarios are studied: (1) electricity only supplied by the grid, (2) photovoltaic (PV) panels installed on and available to some but not all buildings, and (3) a connected community. To consider the impacts of locations and energy tariffs, this paper selects four cities and three electricity tariffs to evaluate the energy and cost performances of these three scenarios. The results show that the PV panels in Scenario 2 reduce 25% to 33% of the community-level electricity consumption and 20% to 30% of the community-level electricity cost compared with Scenario 1 in all studied locations and energy tariffs. By considering power management in the connected community (Scenario 3), the electricity consumption and cost can be further reduced by 6% to 7% and 5% to 11%, respectively, compared with Scenario 2.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Communities in energy transition: exploring best practices and decision support tools to provide equitable outcomes

Abstract The U.S. coal industry has been in a state of decline for the past decade, a trend ushered by flat electricity demand, increased regulatory pressure, and market competition from cost-competitive clean energy sources. The receding economic viability of the coal industry has been acutely felt by the communities with immediate economic ties to coal-fired generation. With the energy transition underway, the question of how to engage communities as stakeholders in the decision-making process and address their needs through an equitable and just transition remains unresolved. To that end, this paper explores the economic, environmental, and social challenges presented by the energy transition at the community level, highlighting four case studies from transitioning coal-dependent communities across the United States to ultimately identify best practices in coal plant decommissioning processes. This paper weaves these community-identified best practices into two support tools—a decommissioning checklist and a redevelopment decision-making framework—that can be used to engage communities in the power plant retirement decision, the site reclamation phase, and eventual redevelopment of the site and revitalization of the surrounding community.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Lahaina Energy Partnership Community Workshop: Technical Assistance Task Updates and Discussion [Slides]

The Lahaina Energy Partnership (LEP) is an initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to support energy planning and rebuilding efforts in Hawaii's historic town of Lahaina on Maui as the community recovers from a devastating fire on August 8, 2023, with technical assistance provided by NLR. This presentation provides an update on NLR's technical assistance efforts for May 2026.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Clean Energy to Communities: Technical Assistance for Region Five, MN

The Region Five Development Commission (“R5DC”) serves five counties in Minnesota, USA and received an Energizing Rural Communities Prize through the U.S. Department of Energy. Currently, R5DC is piloting projects in the City of Motley, for which two energy audits have been conducted. R5DC is seeking input regarding which options to pursue based on these two audits, as well a framework for future audits to be as effective and helpful as possible. This report defines a framework for future audits for R5DC, by providing an overview of the requirements for different levels of audits and identifying available resources for conducting energy audits.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Implementing Clean Energy Transitions for Small Communities: NREL Supports Sierra Club Florida in Efforts to Help Florida Communities Achieve 100% Renewable Energy

Sierra Club Florida's "Clean Energy for All" campaign helps communities in Florida transition to 100% clean energy. The organization sought the help of National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) analysts to achieve to achieve two goals: (1) create a Clean Energy Toolkit to help communities in Florida and across the country find data and and analysis to achieve clean energy goals, and (2) provide direct analysis of local clean energy potential for two Florida communities, the cities of Tallahassee and Sarasota.

clean energy toolkit↗
DOE OSTI2025

Day-Ahead Forecasting with Federated LSTM to Plan Energy Sharing in a Community Microgrid

Energy balancing in microgrids is a key enabler of resilience. Community microgrids located close to each other have the added benefit of networking and sharing surplus energy, if available. Such complex decision-making runs on optimization that requires reliable short-term (up to very-short-term) forecasts of energy generation and consumption for scheduling or trading. Each microgrid may also opt to not expose their sensitive data such as consumption patterns of individual businesses or residences. This paper investigates a federated approach to dayahead forecasting that trains naive long short-term memory (LSTM) at each business in a microgrid and aggregates weights at the microgrid controller using proximal regularization. This approach ensures that the controller has access only to energy surplus/deficit and not the actual generation or consumption values, avoiding unwanted exposure of sensitive data. A community microgrid in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico with 3 businesses is selected as a case study with a laboratory-scale computing setup. A central LSTM forecaster, where sensitive data from businesses are aggregated at the controller, is implemented as a baseline for qualifying the results. This work serves as a proof-of-concept for scaling the approach to networked and nested microgrids with more complex control options.

Sundararajan, Aditya [ORNL] (ORCID:000000033577854↗
DOE OSTI2026

Estimating Return on Investment for Energy Technical Assistance Programs

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of State and Community Energy Programs engaged the National Laboratory of the Rockies to assess the return on investment (ROI) of technical assistance (TA) programs that support state, local, and Tribal energy planning. Although TA delivers value through capacity building, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge transfer, these benefits are often intangible and challenging to monetize. This study reviews existing ROI frameworks and synthesizes the most relevant elements into a hybrid approach tailored to energy TA programs. The proposed framework integrates monetary and non-monetary outcomes through early logic model development, baseline data collection, and the use of proxies for intangible benefits. As a case study, this paper applies this approach to the Communities Local Energy Action Program (Communities LEAP), demonstrating how ROI can inform program design, data strategy, and performance assessment. Findings underscore that ROI should be applied selectively and planned from the outset to ensure data alignment and attribution accuracy. The framework offers TA practitioners a structured approach that can be leveraged for future programs to evaluate and communicate the multifaceted value of TA investments.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Coal Power Plant Reinvestment Visualization Tool

This tool, available at https://energycommunities.gov/coal-power-plant-reinvestment-visualization-tool/, serves as a public database and map for the purposes of enabling state and local economic development officials, project developers, and power plant owners to identify and pursue opportunities for plant and community reinvestment. The Coal Power Plant Reinvestment Visualization Tool focuses on coal power plants that have been closed or set-to-retire, alongside key infrastructure characteristics that are relevant for potential redevelopment reinvestment opportunities, including the opportunity to query these data based off pre-defined or user-set queries to identify opportunities for coal power facility reinvestment to support solar, wind, manufacturing, and nuclear. These Data for visualization and query include, but are not limited to: • Electric Transmission Lines • EPA Brownfield Sites (assessed with Federal funding) • Petroleum Terminals • Ports • Railroads • Others The tool will be updated periodically to provide relevant information to enable state and local economic development officials, project developers, and power plant owners to identify and pursue opportunities for economic revitalization and community reinvestment. Within this application data are focused on U.S. power plants with coal generation, where at least one on-site generator utilizes or utilized coal as a fuel source, including planned retirements through 2058 (EIA, 2024). Additional information on energy communities and revitalization opportunities can be accessed on the Interagency Working Group on Coal & Power Plant Communities & Economic Revitalization Energy Communities website (https://energycommunities.gov).

Closures↗
DOE OSTI2025

Energy to Communities (E2C) Annual Highlights 2024

In 2024, E2C provided customized technical assistance to more than 200 organizations across the country on topics within four categories: energy generation and grid, transportation, buildings, and reliability and recovery.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Form Follows Function (F3): A framework for community-based energy resilience planning in the Midwest

This is the final technical report for the Form Follows Function (F3) grant project led by the City of Duluth, MN. F3 was an innovative two-year initiative that created a replicable, human-centered energy resilience planning process specifically designed for smaller, cold-climate communities in the Midwest. F3 demonstrated both systems-level government planning and community-based research techniques to inform renewable investments and community preparedness strategies.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Intersections of Disadvantaged Communities and Renewable Energy Potential: Data Set and Analysis to Inform Equitable Investment Prioritization in the United States

Renewable energy development can bolster local economies through job creation, local tax revenues, and reduced energy costs; however, communities most in need of economic development and employment opportunities often see lower levels of renewable energy deployment. We sought to identify areas where disadvantaged community indicators and high generation potential from cost-effective renewable energy opportunities intersect and deployment could lead to economic development and job creation. This presentation will highlight several of our findings. This research and the associated county-level data set are intended to inform national- and state-level energy-related assistance programs, economic development efforts, and infrastructure programs seeking to prioritize investments in disadvantaged communities.

community energy planning↗
DOE OSTI2024

Community Geothermal: Energy, Cost, and Carbon Modeling for District Design - Ann Arbor, MI

This data includes results on an analysis of existing and projected energy, cost, and carbon for the City of Ann Arbor - District Geothermal Design and Deployment to Equitably Decarbonize Low Income Neighborhoods in Ann Arbor project. The scope of the project includes designing and implementing a geothermal district heating and cooling system that reduces thermal heating and cooling load by 75% and greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in the project area (262 households, 6 commercial buildings). The existing neighborhood was modeled using Design Builder, an EnergyPlus software, to understand the current energy load. The energy model was then flipped to reflect the designed district geothermal heating and cooling system to project the effect on energy, carbon, and cost. This dataset includes the analysis files utilized and created for this study. There are 3 categories of data: 1) existing/benchmarking, 2) energy modeling, and 3) post processed calculations. This follows the methodology and process of the project team, which is fully explained in file 00_Technical Economic Environmental Assessment. All uses of data are referenced throughout this assessment to their respective files included below.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Occupant Preference-Aware Load Scheduling for Resilient Communities

The load scheduling of resilient communities in the islanded mode is subject to many uncertainties such as weather forecast errors and occupant behavior stochasticity. To date, it remains unclear how occupant preferences affect the effectiveness of the load scheduling of resilient communities. This paper proposes an occupant thermal preference-aware load scheduler for resilient communities operating in the islanded mode. First, key resilience indicators are selected to quantify its impacts on the load scheduling of a resilient community. A deterministic model predictive control-based load scheduling framework is adopted as the baseline. Then, a chance-constrained controller is proposed to address the occupant-induced uncertainty in room temperature setpoints. Finally, the chance-constrained controller is compared with the deterministic controller on a virtual community testbed based on a real-world net-zero energy community in Florida, U.S. Results have shown that the proposed chance-constrained controller performs better in terms of serving occupants’ thermal preference and the required battery sizes compared to the deterministic controller with the presence of the assumed stochastic occupant behavior. This work indicates that it is necessary to consider the stochasticity of the occupant behavior when designing optimal load schedulers for resilient communities.

Wang, Jing↗
DOE OSTI2023

ResStock Communities LEAP Pilot Residential Housing Analysis - Detailed Methodology

This methodology document supports residential building analysis for some communities receiving technical assistance through the Department of Energy Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program). Communities LEAP supports community-wide economic and environmental benefits through technical assistance.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

Communities LEAP (Local Energy Action Program) Pilot

The Communities Local Energy Action Program (LEAP) pilot overview fact sheet provides background on the opportunities and benefits of the program, the various pathways that communities are pursuing, and the technical assistance provided.

C-LEAP↗
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↗