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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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Two-Stage Reinforcement Learning Policy Search for Grid-Interactive Building Control

This paper develops an intelligent grid-interactive building controller, which optimizes building operation during both normal hours and demand response (DR) events. To avoid costly on-demand computation and to adapt to non-linear building models, the controller utilizes reinforcement learning (RL) and makes real-time decisions based on a near-optimal control policy. Learning such a policy typically amounts to solving a hard non-convex optimization problem. We propose to address this problem with a novel global-local policy search method. In the first stage, an RL algorithm based on zero-order gradient estimation is leveraged to search for the optimal policy globally, due to its scalability and the potential to escape some poor performing local optima. The obtained policy is then fine-tuned locally to bring the first-stage solution closer to that of the original unsmoothed problem. Experiments on a simulated five-zone commercial building demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method over existing learning approaches. They also show that the learned control policy outperforms a pragmatic linear model predictive controller (MPC) and approaches the performance of an oracle MPC in testing scenarios. Using a state-of-the-art advanced computing system, we demonstrate that the controller can be learned and deployed within hours of training.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Affordable and Accessible Solar for All: Barriers, Solutions, and On-Site Adoption Potential

Solar energy technologies can be used as part of a suite of tools to reduce the energy burden of low-income customers, but to date, low- and moderate-income (LMI) customers have not adopted solar at the same rate as other income groups. This paper summarizes the barriers of LMI solar adoption related to finance and funding, community engagement, site suitability, policy and regulatory, and resilience and recovery and discusses existing and potential future solutions to address these barriers. In addition, we model future LMI on-site solar adoption, using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) dGen model. We model future scenarios assuming no changes in the current LMI solar policy and program environment, and we add two incentives to low-income households for adopting solar: a $\$$3,000 incentive and a full incentive (i.e., the full cost of a PV system). While we model a financial incentive, this dollar reduction in cost could also come from other efforts, for example, reductions in solar soft costs. We find that by 2050, 48-49% of LMI households adopt solar, resulting in $\$$69- $\$$101 billion in first year utility bill savings to these consumers.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

The Baltimore Community Weather Station Network: Filling the Urban Measurement Desert

Quantification and understanding of how heat, rainfall, and air quality vary within cities are needed to identify the area with the worst conditions, develop solutions to extreme weather, and assess the impact of proposed policies. However, neighborhood-level variability is not well quantified because there are few environmental measurement stations within cities. In Baltimore City, a community-based network of weather stations to address this issue has been developed through a partnership between universities, state agencies, and Baltimore residents. The weather stations are hosted by community partners, and the data collected are enabling the mapping of urban weather across the city and the testing of models and proposed mitigation strategies. In addition, the network provides direct community involvement, with resulting benefits of increased community engagement, education, and empowerment. Researchers have an opportunity to democratize the scientific process and ensure that local knowledge and lived experiences of city residents inform future decision-making. The approach could be used as a model for other cities that apply similar monitoring instruments for other environmental exposures.

community↗
DOE OSTI2024

Publication of the Belle II Software

The Belle II software was developed by a few hundred individual contributors over several years. Following the rising desire of making it publicly available, the collaboration established open source software policies and procedures. The political and technical challenges and their solutions at Belle II are discussed in this article. With the publication of the Belle II software, basf2, on GitHub and Zenodo in 2021 an important milestone towards open science was reached.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS2008

Space Science and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations: Summary of a Workshop

The United States seeks to protect its security and foreign-policy interests, in part, by actively controlling the export of goods, technologies, and services that are or may be useful for military development in other nations. "Export" is defined not simply as the sending abroad of hardware but also as the communication of related technology and know-how to foreigners in the United States and overseas. The U.S. government mechanism for controlling dual-use items--items in commerce that have potential military use is the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) administered by the Department of Commerce; items defined in law as defense articles fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of State and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Because of the potential military implications of the export of defense articles, the ITAR regime imposes much greater burdens (on both the applicant and the government) than does the EAR regime during the process of applying for, and implementing the provisions of, licenses and technical-assistance agreements. Until the early 1990s export control activity related to all space satellites (commercial and scientific) was handled under ITAR. Between 1992 and 1996 the George H.W. Bush and the Clinton administrations transferred jurisdiction over the licensing of civilian communications satellites to the Commerce Department under EAR. In 1999, however, in response to broad concerns about Chinese attempts to acquire U.S. high technology, the U.S. House of Representatives convened the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People s Republic of China, also known as the Cox Committee. One of the many consequences of the Cox Committee's report was Congress's mandate that jurisdiction over export and licensing of satellites and related equipment and services, irrespective of military utility, be transferred from the Department of Commerce to the State Department and that such equipment and services be covered as defense articles under ITAR. Scientific satellites were explicitly included despite their use for decades in peaceful internationally conducted cooperative scientific research. It is widely recognized that the shift in regulatory regime from EAR to ITAR has had major deleterious effects on international scientific research activities that depend on satellites, spaceflight hardware, and other items that are now controlled by ITAR. Furthermore, contravening U.S. interests in attracting foreign students to U.S. universities, the capture of space technology by ITAR has caused serious problems in the teaching of university space science and engineering classes, virtually all of which include non-U.S. students. This report is a summary of a September 2007 workshop in which participants from the space research communities and the export-control administration and policy communities came together to discuss problems, effects, and potential solutions regarding the application of ITAR to space science. The principal themes and ideas that emerged from the discussions are summarized.

Finarelli, Margaret G.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Cataloging US state policy patterns towards microgrid deployment

Frequent extreme weather events have called for rigorous and timely efforts for alternative non-wire solutions. These efforts are getting more widespread to offer a perfect alternative as the conventional grid becomes progressively less resilient. One of these solutions is microgrids that can disconnect from the grid and offer grid resilience during an outage. While this technology is still finding its footing in the industry, states across the US are employing policy patterns and forms of instruments to support its deployment. This study includes a systemic review of the US by conducting a binary analysis of all 50 states (including Washington D.C, excluding other US territories) using seven variables. The results show four major policy approaches to microgrids: i) supporting microgrids through a definitive legislative activity leading to further policy action; ii) direct efforts from the public utilities commissions without a concrete legislative push; iii) initiatives from institutions other than the commissions; and lastly, iv) self-initiated community and private consumer efforts. The results help understand what policy instruments are being used in each of these patterns to support this niche technology that still faces regulatory challenges.

Furqan, Maham↗
DOE OSTI2022

PowerGridworld: A Framework for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning in Power Systems: Preprint

We present the PowerGridworld software package to provide users with a light-weight, modular, and customizable framework for creating power systems-focused, multi-agent gym environments that readily integrate with existing training frameworks for reinforcement learning (RL). While many frameworks exist for training multi-agent (MA) RL policies, none exist to rapidly prototype and develop the environments themselves, especially in the context of heterogeneous (composite, multi-device) power systems where power flow solutions are required to define grid-level variables and costs. PowerGridworld is an open-source software package that helps to fill this gap. To highlight PowerGridworld's key features, we present two case studies and demonstrate learning multi-agent RL policies using both OpenAI's MADDPG and RLLib's PPO algorithms where, in both cases, at least some subset of agents incorporate elements of the power flow solution at each time step as part of their reward (negative cost) structures.

MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2022

LANL’s Digital Supply Chain Transformation with Ariba Part 2 [Slides]

LANL’s budget continues to increase. Our annual procurement spend has increased from approximately 750 million two years ago to 1.4 Billion in FY21. Procurement for LANL is a mix of indirect and direct but had limited managed spend – more standalone orders vs master contracts. The level of transformation we were looking to achieve required a comprehensive approach, encompassing people, processes and software solutions.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Developing a Decision Support System for Regional Agricultural Nonpoint Salinity Pollution Management: Application to the San Joaquin River, California

Environmental problems and production losses associated with irrigated agriculture, such as salinity, degradation of receiving waters, such as rivers, and deep percolation of saline water to aquifers, highlight water-quality concerns that require a paradigm shift in resource-management policy. New tools are needed to assist environmental managers in developing sustainable solutions to these problems, given the nonpoint source nature of salt loads to surface water and groundwater from irrigated agriculture. Equity issues arise in distributing responsibility and costs to the generators of this source of pollution. This paper describes an alternative approach to salt regulation and control using the concept of “Real-Time Water Quality management”. The approach relies on a continually updateable WARMF (Watershed Analysis Risk Management Framework) forecasting model to provide daily estimates of salt load assimilative capacity in the San Joaquin River and assessments of compliance with salinity concentration objectives at key monitoring sites on the river. The results of the study showed that the policy combination of well-crafted river salinity objectives by the regulator and the application of an easy-to use and maintain decision support tool by stakeholders have succeeded in minimizing water quality (salinity) exceedances over a 20-year study period.

real-time management economics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Scale-Bridging Optimization Framework for Desalination Integrated Produced Water Networks

In this work, we develop a Pyomo-based non-linear optimization strategy that includes rigorous MVR models. The detailed desalination unit is integrated into the multiperiod produced water network problem using the trust region filter (TRF) method. TRF decomposes the integrated problem into a master problem consisting of the network variables and a simplified surrogate model for the detailed desalination unit. The surrogate is updated using zero and first-order corrections from the optimal solution of the detailed models at every iteration. This framework allows us to co-optimize the design of the desalination units and operating policy for the multiperiod network. A common design is ensured across all periods using global capacity constraints. We validate the solution obtained using the TRF method by solving the full integrated problem for small network instances and show our results on real case studies on produced water networks from the Permian and Appalachian basins. In this work, we describe our TRF formulation, give details on our implementation in Pyomo, and analyze the results obtained by solving the optimization problem using IPOPT. We also present a discussion on the computational efficiency and scaling using the TRF approach against a full-scale integration of the rigorous models within the water network.

Naik, Sakshi↗
DOE OSTI2022

Current Challenges in Efficient Lithium‐Ion Batteries’ Recycling: A Perspective

Abstract Li‐ion battery (LIB) recycling has become an urgent need with rapid prospering of the electric vehicle (EV) industry, which has caused a shortage of material resources and led to an increasing amount of retired batteries. However, the global LIB recycling effort is hampered by various factors such as insufficient logistics, regulation, and technology readiness. Here, the challenges associated with LIB recycling and their possible solutions are summarized. Different aspects such as recycling/upcycling techniques, worldwide government policies, and the economic and environmental impacts are discussed, along with some practical suggestions to overcome these challenges for a promising circular economy for LIB materials. Some potential strategies are proposed to convert such challenges into opportunities to maintain the global expansion of the EV and other LIB‐dependent industries.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Air quality and comfort constrained energy efficient operation of multi-zone buildings

Maintaining indoor air quality (IAQ) through effective ventilation is essential for the well-being and productivity of building occupants. Control strategies aimed at improving the efficiency of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems must jointly determine ventilation and heating and cooling processes. Here, in this paper, we study the problem of minimizing the energy consumption of the HVAC system in a multi-zone building, while meeting thermal comfort and IAQ requirements. We first perform a steady state analysis of the zonal carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration and the temperature dynamics. The resulting expressions are convex in the zonal mass flow rates and zonal temperatures. Guided by the steady state solutions for meeting the thermal comfort constraints, we develop two control policies for improving the energy efficiency of building HVAC systems while jointly satisfying indoor temperature and IAQ constraints. We compare the performance of our proposed approaches with those of multiple baseline approaches which implement separate regimes for controlling zonal temperature and IAQ for a typical work-day in a multi-zone campus building. We have evaluated the performance of our proposed approaches under varying levels of flexibility in zonal temperatures. We have shown that zonal temperature flexibility can result in energy savings up to 32% (for the same control strategies) as compared to the case where no such flexibility is permitted. Our proposed approaches were seen to offer potential savings of nearly 29% compared to the baseline.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2026

Deer Isle and Stonington Energy Reliability Opportunities

The towns of Deer Isle and Stonington, located on the island of Deer Isle in Maine, partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project (ETIPP) to examine options to enhance energy resilience, reduce dependence on imported fuels, and mitigate high energy costs. With technical support from the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and regional partner the Island Institute, the project focused on evaluation of the local electricity distribution infrastructure, examination of ongoing activities to reduce the frequency of outages, review of the applicable policy and regulatory environment, and identification of potential on-site energy solutions. Key findings revealed the island's reliance on a single distribution line, and limited hosting capacity for additional distributed energy resources. Solar photovoltaics (PV) technology, with and without battery storage, was found to be the most viable technology given economic, technical, and social considerations. While also technically feasible, wind energy faces more difficult siting and less public acceptance compared to PV. Marine energy technologies were determined to be infeasible due to technology immaturity and lengthy permitting timelines. Modeling of potential building-scale PV plus storage systems resulted in successful grant applications for installations at two local facilities. Analysis of community scale energy generation and storage options resulted the local utility, Versant, submitting a grant application for a proposed community-scale battery storage system to increase grid resilience and hosting capacity. This initiative has strengthened the communities' energy planning capabilities and laid the groundwork for future clean energy development.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Cost-Benefit Analysis For Indonesia Building Sector: Whole-Building Cooling Solutions

The Net Zero World (NZW) Initiative Collaborative Work Program with the Government of Indonesia (GoI) includes technical assistance and investment mobilization facilitation to accelerate deployment of energy efficiency technologies and solutions for the building sector. A February 2023 U.S.–Indonesia Joint Workshop on Decarbonizing the Building Sector yielded a NZW Indonesia Building Decarbonization Working Group (NZW IBDWG) with four sub-working groups (SWG): SWG-A National Center, SWG-B Capacity Building, SWG-C Investment and Financing, and SWG-D Pilot Projects. Technical analysis of whole-building cooling solutions for tropical climates of Indonesia was conducted by SWG-A to quantify energy savings, carbon dioxide reductions, and comfort improvements offered by 12 passive or low-energy cooling strategies: ceiling fans with and without thermostat setbacks; cool roofs; cool walls; exterior awnings; exterior shades; interior shades; insulated roofs; insulated walls; low-e windows; solar window films; and natural ventilation. Leveraging the results from SWG-A, cost-benefit analysis (CBA) was conducted by SWG-C to assess the consumer and national costs and impacts associated with these 12 cooling solutions. The evaluation involved estimating life-cycle costs (LCC), payback period (PBP), net present values (NPV), annual electricity burden change for low-income households, and reduced national annual power-sector generation demand by 2030, 2040, 2050, and 2060. This evaluation can help guide Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) investments in policies and programs to advance research, development, deployment, and commercial adoption (RDDCA) of efficient residential building sector cooling technologies and solutions in Indonesia. Four key energy conservation measures (ECM) have been identified to reduce air-conditioning (AC) energy demand in single-family housing in Indonesia: ceiling fan with temperature setback (to 28.1 °Celcius from 25 °C); insulated walls; insulated roof; and cool roof. This study found that low-income households with AC installations in Indonesia currently face a high energy cost burden of approximately 10%. However, by implementing a ceiling fan with temperature setback, this burden could decrease to 2.5% today and further reduce to 1.3% by the year 2060. The PBP for a ceiling fan with temperature setback is one year, indicating one of the lowest LCC and best NPV. In the planned upcoming phase of CBA, a series of building cooling improvement scenarios can be further defined, incorporating more than one ECM in combination with socio-economic factors evaluated in the initial CBA phase. Additionally, the analysis of ECM effects in multifamily housing can be expanded. This broader national analysis aims to encompass a holistic and comprehensive system-level perspective, including factors such as avoided power sector infrastructure investments, domestic job creation, domestic manufacturing job creation, and gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Intelligent network slicing and policy-based routing engine

One or more aspects of the present disclosure are directed to network optimization solutions provided as software agents (applications) executed on network nodes in a heterogenous multi-vendor environment to provide cross-layer network optimization and ensure availability of network resources to meet associated Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS). In one aspect, a network slicing engine is configured to receive at least one request from at least one network endpoint for access to the heterogeneous multi-vendor network for data transmission; receive information on state of operation of a plurality of communication links between the plurality of nodes; determine a set of data transmission routes for the request; assign a network slice for serving the request; determine, from the set of data transmission routes, an end-to-end route for the network slice; and send network traffic associated with the request using the network slice and over the end-to-end route.

Mody, Apurva N.↗
NASA NTRS1991

NASA's challenge for tomorrow

The early space probes provided our first detailed look at the planets, and demonstrated the critical role played by parts technology. The advanced orbital platform under development, the Space Station Freedom (which represents a pivotal step in the space program) contains about 5 million Electrical, Electronic and Electromechanical (EEE) parts. Thus, EEE parts continue to be crucial to mission success. The NASA EEE parts program establishes and directs policy and integration throughout the Agency. The EEE program structure, issues and solutions are described. The challenge presented by advanced electronic devices is discussed.

Barney, Daniel L.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Controlling Tensegrity Robots through Evolution using Friction based Actuation

Traditional robotic structures have limitations in planetary exploration as their rigid structural joints are prone to damage in new and rough terrains. In contrast, robots based on tensegrity structures, composed of rods and tensile cables, offer a highly robust, lightweight, and energy efficient solution over traditional robots. In addition tensegrity robots can be highly configurable by rearranging their topology of rods, cables and motors. However, these highly configurable tensegrity robots pose a significant challenge for locomotion due to their complexity. This study investigates a control pattern for successful locomotion in tensegrity robots through an evolutionary algorithm. A twelve-rod hardware model is rapidly prototyped to utilize a new actuation method based on friction. A web-based physics simulation is created to model the twelve-rod tensegrity ball structure. Square-waves are used as control policies for the actuators of the tensegrity structure. Monte Carlo trials are run to find the most successful number of amplitudes for the square-wave control policy. From the results, an evolutionary algorithm is implemented to find the most optimized solution for locomotion of the twelve-rod tensegrity structure. The software pattern coupled with the new friction based actuation method can serve as the basis for highly efficient tensegrity robots in space exploration.

Tensegrit↗