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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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Each quarter, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducts the Quarterly Solar Industry Update, a presentation of technical trends within the solar industry, to the solar office staff. Each presentation focuses on global and U.S. supply and demand, module and system price, investment trends and business models, and updates on U.S. government programs supporting the solar industry.
The State Government Revenue Vulnerability Index (SGRVI) and Local Government Revenue Vulnerability Index (LGRVI) measure the vulnerability of government revenues by estimating monthly changes relative to a January 2020 baseline. Revenues included in both indices include: taxes on products and sales, transportation and housing revenues, individual income taxes, severance taxes and royalties, and property taxes. Local government revenues also include a local revenue from state revenue sharing component. In addition, the main index for the LGRVI for county-level governments includes revenue estimates for sub-county government units, including municipalities, school districts, and special districts. This revenue data is aggregated to produce the indices.
Each quarter, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducts the Quarterly Solar Industry Update, a presentation of technical trends within the solar industry, to the solar office staff. Each presentation focuses on global and U.S. supply and demand, module and system price, investment trends and business models, and updates on U.S. government programs supporting the solar industry.
The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) is helping federal agencies understand how to meet decarbonization goals with grid interactive efficient buildings (GEB). This training will provide attendees with an introduction to GEB, how to work with utilities, and opportunities for federal sites.
This document highlights areas of potential community resilience improvements, especially those that relate to clean energy deployment for communities and municipalities. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) defines resilience as "a system's ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions through sustainable, adaptable, and holistic planning and technical solutions." This document introduces 10 categories of resilience-enhancing projects at a high level, intended for community members and decision-makers new to the topic to build their understanding of which solutions fit their community best. These categories focus primarily on community-scale measures and different options may be available at larger scales. Full implementation of the measures described here requires in-depth, site-specific considerations that go beyond the scope of this document.
Every year, federal technology evaluation programs test and assess the performance of building technologies that are being considered for wider deployment in federal facilities. Despite these investments in technology validation, many of the technologies evaluated by federal programs struggle to achieve broad penetration into the federal performance contracting market. This report contains the results of a market-research survey conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to understand barriers to the wider adoption of validated building technologies in the federal performance contracting market and how this information can be used to increase their deployment. The initial phase of this research focuses on the energy service company community and the barriers they perceive to wider adoption of these evaluated technologies. The report ends with an examination of recommendations for how the U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program can assist agencies in deploying emerging building technologies through energy savings performance contracts.
This report describes the design development process and recommendations of a Community-Scale Zero Net Energy Master Plan for a residential block in Oakland, the Oakland EcoBlock. The recommended master plan includes an integrated system of energy efficiency retrofits, a direct current solar/storage/electric vehicle microgrid, alternating/direct current houses, and water efficiency retrofits with rainwater capture. The recommended master plan is projected to be close to zero-net energy (95 percent) for homes, reduce carbon emissions by 65 percent at the block scale (including transportation), and reduce water use 60–70 percent. The integrated system of energy efficiency and a direct current solar/storage/electric vehicle (EV) charging microgrid is the first of its kind at the residential block scale. This breakthrough because the deep energy efficiency retrofit savings free up enough capacity in the solar supply and storage to enable residents to switch from natural gas to electricity for heating and domestic hot water and to provide EV charging for 33 percent of vehicle miles traveled. The savings in household transportation costs are a game changer because when combined with savings in the electric and water utility bills, the total cash flow savings are projected to fund the capital improvements of the proposed systems. This project’s benefits include lower and more predictable utility bills; greater resiliency because the system can operate during outages, and vastly improved indoor air quality by reducing natural gas consumption. The local energy storage reduces peak demand for the utility. California benefits from a model that exceeds the targets for reductions in energy consumption and carbon emissions and the reductions in water use address California’s severe water challenges. The Oakland EcoBlock is a transformative model for accelerating the rapid deployment of advanced energy communities.
It's easy to get overwhelmed as you start to explore your solar options. There is a wealth of information available out there, particularly online, and it can be hard to know who to trust. This informational guide has been adapted from Austin Energy's Solar Education Course and other national best practice resources, as of May 1, 2023. It will help you understand some of the key concepts and resources available to help you on your solar journey if you have a home in Austin Energy's service territory and are considering installing solar. This document includes: (1) Austin Energy Programs and Services Related to Solar; (2) Tips for Spotting a Solar Scam; (3) Things to Know When Designing Your System; (4) Key Considerations When Shopping for a Solar Contractor; and (5) Final Takeaways.
This flyer was developed to guide homeowners on their solar journey and expand the benefits of solar to local residents. The guide is an overview of various energy and solar programs and services through the Austin Energy utility with tips for spotting scams, a summary of common terms when designing a solar system, and considerations when searching for a solar contractor.
In this first step in the Community Planning for Solar process, we provide guidance on forming a collaborative community Solar Planning Team and identifying initial roles, timelines, and goals.
This fact sheet is part of the Community Planning for Solar toolkit designed to help Massachusetts municipalities and others proactively plan for solar development in their communities. This fact sheet will walk you through the electricity system, and help you understand how the grid is changing as distributed generation (DG) electricity sources become more common.
This guide describes how to conduct a Solar Resource and Infrastructure Assessment. The guide is designed to assist community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in conducting a preliminary assessment for a municipality, community, or other jurisdiction, based primarily on a desktop analysis of existing documents and data. The guide provides a process that can be used to inventory and describe existing infrastructure, community needs, and resources from the perspective of solar development planning.
Preparing a plan regarding solar development in your community requires bringing together people from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, who often have strong feelings and preferences about the amount and location of local solar PV projects developed in their community. The planning process should be designed in an inclusive way, where meaningful community engagement is prioritized. With a topic such as solar development, which can elicit strong reactions among community members, proactive community engagement that is perceived as fair will likely lead to more favorable outcomes. Whether your community hosts large tracts of forest, brownfields, residential neighborhoods, and/or large buildings and parking lots, there are a variety of ways community members might envision growth of solar energy. The engagement process can help clarify how and where solar is preferred, so that local government can respond to future solar development requests or to initiate solar projects that are preferred by the community.
This guide is designed to assist community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in conducting preliminary community meetings to learn about attitudes towards solar energy in your community. The guide will provide the key steps, timelines, facilitators' guide, and tips for hosting successful focus groups. Focus groups are meetings with a small group that represent a diversity of perspectives in your community. These differ from an open meeting in that focus groups include very specific questions that are prepared in advance, and all participants are given time to respond and understand various perspectives about solar energy. The guide concludes with a suggested template for reporting the results of your focus group or community meeting to your community more broadly. Holding community focus groups is part of assessing community preferences, as part of the Community Planning for Solar toolkit (ag.umass.edu/solarplanning). This guide is designed to help municipalities in Massachusetts and other states proactively plan for solar development in their communities. For more information, visit the UMass Clean Energy Extension (CEE) website (ag.umass.edu/clean-energy).
This guide is designed to assist community officials, volunteers, and regional planning agency staff in conducting a survey of residents to learn about attitudes and development preferences towards solar energy within the community. The guide will provide the key steps, timelines, distribution options, ethics, and considerations that should be made in developing a survey distribution strategy. The guide also contains an overview of various question types and response categories, with considerations for the type of data that are needed for the study. The guide concludes with recommendations for managing data and databases, data visualization, and reporting results. The appendix includes samples of materials used in a solar energy survey, from invitation letters to the survey. This document is intended to provide a practical guide for implementing a survey in communities that are proactively planning for solar development. The guide offers a practical “how-to” plan for conducting a survey. It may be advantageous to consult with an expert in survey development who will be familiar with any methods and techniques described in this guide, but this is not necessary. This guide offers basic considerations and examples of questions and analyses to help a community understand preferences of the community.
The Community Solar Action Plan is a living document that guides community solar planning action over time. As conditions change, new information becomes available, or actions progress over the life of the plan, adjustments may be necessary to maintain the plan's relevance. This fact sheet describes some things to consider when implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and updating the Community Solar Action Plan over time.
The report presents an analysis of the considerations, costs, and benefits surrounding the implementation of utility consolidated billing in community solar programs while also exploring alternatives to achieve similar benefits in its absence. Consolidated billing simplifies the billing process for customers by combining all charges and credits associated with electricity service and community solar subscriptions into a single bill. The potential benefits of consolidated billing implementation include increased transparency, improved customer experience, and ultimately increased retention rates and decreased subscriber acquisition costs. Currently, community solar subscribers often receive two separate bills - one from the utility and one from a third-party community solar provider - potentially causing confusion. Consolidated billing seeks to resolve this by offering a unified bill, which, while beneficial to numerous stakeholders, presents administrative, technical, and financial hurdles that utilities and program administrators must address.
The Meaningful Household Savings Community of Practice—and this report—focuses on electricity bill savings, other household savings, wealth-building opportunities, and other benefits such as tenant services provided to residents in master-metered buildings. For this report, the project team collected information about ways meaningful household savings have been defined; researched best practices to define, achieve, and quantify meaningful household savings; and identified strategies to scale the adoption and implementation of successful methods.