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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 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Energy Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship: Insights From the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Technology Transitions 2024 Energy Technology University Prize Faculty Track

The Energy Technology University Prize (EnergyTech UP) was established in 2022 with the goal of challenging student teams to develop impactful business plans for energy technologies of their choosing. EnergyTech UP is part of the The American Made Challenges program portfolio, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. EnergyTech UP is specifically funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) and is administrated by staff at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Since its inception, the annual prize has attracted applications from approximately 1,948 students across nearly every U.S. state and territory, awarding over $1 million in funds to student teams. In 2024, the prize expanded to include a Faculty Track, which invited faculty members from degree-granting institutions across the U.S. to design entrepreneurship-based curricula or educational activities. This new track aims to foster innovation in energy entrepreneurship education by leveraging the expertise of faculty to create robust, practical, and inclusive learning experiences. This report summarizes the themes, strategies and impacts identified in proposals from EnergyTech UP's inaugural Faculty Track. Our primary data for organizing insights are the Faculty Track applications themselves. This evaluation of 2024 EnergyTech UP Faculty Track applications aims to support future EnergyTech UP Faculty Track applicants as well as others who are interested in promoting, developing, and/or implementing educational activities that focus on energy commercialization and entrepreneurship at their institutions. By presenting insights from 2024 entries to the Faculty Track, we hope to contribute to a growing inventory of open-source curriculum development resources and provide materials to facilitate the growth of similar programs at a variety of collegiate institutions.

adoption readiness level↗
DOE OSTI2023

Envisioning the Future Renewable and Resilient Energy Grids—A Power Grid Revolution Enabled by Renewables, Energy Storage, and Energy Electronics

Today’s power grids are facing tremendous challenges because of the ever-increasing power demand, system complexity, infrastructure cost, knowledge base, and policy and regulatory issues to achieve supply–demand power balance and resiliency with respect to more frequent extreme weather events and cyberattacks. It is particularly challenging when the transition toward 100% intermittent renewable energy sources is considered. Many countries are calling for building up more transmission and distribution lines to increase power delivery capacities. This article is an attempt to answer two urgent questions: Is more transmission and distribution infrastructure really needed to meet the increasing power demand? What kind of future grid infrastructure should we envision and build? This article attempts to answer these questions and proposes the concept of community-centric asynchronous renewable and resilient energy grids. By clearly differentiating the concepts of grid resilience and reliability, the importance of building resilient power electronics’ devices and robust system-level control algorithms to achieve 100% renewable energy integrated resilient grids is presented. To identify the shortcomings and propose advancements, power electronics’ technologies are categorized using the proposed concepts of natural source frequencies (NSf), energy storage, direct energy conversion/control and fault protection (DeCaFp), and high-efficiency energy consumption and buffering (heECaB) technology. The ability of networked microgrids to greatly reduce power outages and power system restoration time is demonstrated by leveraging robust decentralized and centralized control algorithms, identified through a comprehensive literature review. Future research areas are proposed to further enhance grid stability, controllability, cybersecurity, and protection against faults in the presence of 100% renewable sources by leveraging the advanced capabilities of NSf, DeCaFp, and heECaB devices and system-level control algorithms.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

On the validity of the basis set superposition error and complete basis set limit extrapolations for the binding energy of the formic acid dimer

We report the variation of the binding energy of the Formic Acid Dimer with the size of the basis set at the Coupled Cluster with iterative Singles, Doubles and perturbatively connected Triple replacements [CCSD(T)] level of theory, estimate the Complete Basis Set (CBS) limit, and examine the validity of the Basis Set Superposition Error (BSSE)-correction for this quantity that was previously challenged by Kalescky, Kraka, and Cremer (KKC) [J. Chem. Phys. 140, 084315 (2014)]. Our results indicate that the BSSE correction, including terms that account for the substantial geometry change of the monomers due to the formation of two strong hydrogen bonds in the dimer, is indeed valid for obtaining accurate estimates for the binding energy of this system as it exhibits the expected decrease with increasing basis set size. We attribute the discrepancy between our current results and those of KKC to their use of a valence basis set in conjunction with the correlation of all electrons (i.e., including the 1s of C and O). We further show that the use of a core-valence set in conjunction with all electron correlation converges faster to the CBS limit as the BSSE correction is less than half than the valence electron/valence basis set case. The uncorrected and BSSE-corrected binding energies were found to produce the same (within 0.1 kcal/mol) CBS limits. We obtain CCSD(T)/CBS best estimates for D{sub e} = − 16.1 ± 0.1 kcal/mol and for D{sub 0} = − 14.3 ± 0.1 kcal/mol, the later in excellent agreement with the experimental value of −14.22 ± 0.12 kcal/mol.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2011

The Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (A "Life at the Frontiers of Energy Research" contest entry from the 2011 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) Summit and Forum)

"The Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (CFSES)" was submitted to the "Life at the Frontiers of Energy Research" video contest at the 2011 Science for Our Nation's Energy Future: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) Summit and Forum. Twenty-six EFRCs created short videos to highlight their mission and their work. CFSES is directed by Gary A. Pope at the University of Texas at Austin and partners with Sandia National Laboratories. The Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science established the 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) in 2009. These collaboratively-organized centers conduct fundamental research focused on 'grand challenges' and use-inspired 'basic research needs' recently identified in major strategic planning efforts by the scientific community. The overall purpose is to accelerate scientific progress toward meeting the nation's critical energy challenges.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2011

Center for Defect Physics - Energy Frontier Research Center (A "Life at the Frontiers of Energy Research" contest entry from the 2011 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) Summit and Forum)

"Center for Defect Physics - Energy Frontier Research Center" was submitted by the Center for Defect Physics (CDP) to the "Life at the Frontiers of Energy Research" video contest at the 2011 Science for Our Nation's Energy Future: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) Summit and Forum. Twenty-six EFRCs created short videos to highlight their mission and their work. CDP is directed by G. Malcolm Stocks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and is a partnership of scientists from eight institutions: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (lead); Ames Laboratory; University of California, Berkeley; Carnegie Mellon University; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; Ohio State University; University of Georgia and University of Tennessee. The Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science established the 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) in 2009. These collaboratively-organized centers conduct fundamental research focused on 'grand challenges' and use-inspired 'basic research needs' recently identified in major strategic planning efforts by the scientific community. The overall purpose is to accelerate scientific progress toward meeting the nation's critical energy challenges.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

U.S. energy sector impacts of technology innovation, fuel price, and electric sector CO2 policy: Results from the EMF 32 model intercomparison study

We study the impact of fuel prices, technology innovation, and a CO2 emissions reduction policy on both the electric power and end-use sectors by comparing outputs from four U.S. energy-economic models through the year 2050. Achieving innovation goals decreases CO2 emissions in all models, regardless of natural gas price, due to increased energy efficiency and low-carbon generation becoming more cost competitive. For the models that include domestic natural gas markets, achieving innovation goals lowers wholesale electricity prices, but this effect diminishes as projected natural gas prices increase. Higher natural gas prices lead to higher wholesale electricity prices but fewer coal capacity retirements. A CO2 electric power sector emissions cap influences electric sector evolution under reference technology assumptions but has little to no incremental influence when added to innovation goals. Long-term, meeting innovation goals achieves a generation mix with similar CO2 emissions compared to the CO2 policy but with smaller increases to wholesale electricity prices. In the short-term, the relative effect on wholesale prices differs by model. Finally, higher natural gas prices, achieving innovation goals, and the combination of the two, increases the amount of renewable generation that is cost-effective to build and operate while slowing the growth of natural-gas fired generation, which is the predominant generation type in 2050 under reference conditions.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Building Energy Codes and Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings: How building energy codes can enable a more dynamic and energy-efficient built environment

This report considers the role of national model codes to promote grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) as part of the modernization of the U.S. electricity grid. It introduces GEBs, describes their ability to support a clean, resilient grid, and considers challenges and approaches for incorporating GEB measures into national model energy codes and standards. Desirable traits of GEB include being low energy, low peaking, and responsive to grid needs, and minimizing the curtailment of renewable energy resources. In addition, the future grid incurs a time and locational value on these types of building services. Accounting for these considerations in future code development requires a continuation and expansion of code-minimum energy efficiency requirements and inclusion of demand responsive and load flexibility measures while ensuring annual use and cost reductions. Also, efforts to include GEB measures in codes will be limited until they are fully developed into an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-approved standard. Then it would be straightforward to address GEB measures through points or packages and/or scoring requirements. Otherwise, the building code would have to describe each specific grid responsive strategy. This document reviews topics pertinent to considering codes in this context. Specifically, the study presents the status and direction of current building energy codes, the future smart grid, low-energy buildings, and grid-integrated buildings. The report concludes with recommendations for future code development activities to support low-energy, grid-interactive buildings in order to provide added value to building owners, the grid, and society.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2013

Anomalous lattice expansion in yttria stabilized zirconia under simultaneous applied electric and thermal fields: A time-resolved in situ energy dispersive x-ray diffractometry study with an ultrahigh energy synchrotron probe

Nonisothermal densification in 8% yttria doped zirconia (8YSZ) particulate matter of 250 nm median particle size was studied under 215 V/cm dc electric field and 9 Degree-Sign C/min heating rate, using time-resolved in-situ high temperature energy dispersive x-ray diffractometry with a polychromatic 200 keV synchrotron probe. Densification occurred in the 876-905 Degree-Sign C range, which resulted in 97% of the theoretical density. No local melting at particle-particle contacts was observed in scanning electron micrographs, implying densification was due to solid state mass transport processes. The maximum current draw at 905 Degree-Sign C was 3 A, corresponding to instantaneous absorbed power density of 570 W/cm{sup 3}. Densification of 8YSZ was accompanied by anomalous elastic volume expansions of the unit cell by 0.45% and 2.80% at 847 Degree-Sign C and 905 Degree-Sign C, respectively. The anomalous expansion at 905 Degree-Sign C at which maximum densification was observed is characterized by three stages: (I) linear stage, (II) anomalous stage, and (III) anelastic recovery stage. The densification in stage I (184 s) and II (15 s) was completed in 199 s, while anelastic relaxation in stage III lasted 130 s. The residual strains ({epsilon}) at room temperature, as computed from tetragonal (112) and (211) reflections, are {epsilon}{sub (112)} = 0.05% and {epsilon}{sub (211)} = 0.13%, respectively. Time dependence of (211) and (112) peak widths ({beta}) show a decrease with both exhibiting a singularity at 905 Degree-Sign C. An anisotropy in (112) and (211) peak widths of {l_brace} {beta}{sub (112)}/{beta}{sub (211)}{r_brace} = (3:1) magnitude was observed. No phase transformation occurred at 905 Degree-Sign C as verified from diffraction spectra on both sides of the singularity, i.e., the unit cell symmetry remains tetragonal. We attribute the reduction in densification temperature and time to ultrafast ambipolar diffusion of species arising from the superposition of mass fluxes due to Fickian diffusion, thermodiffusion (Soret effect), and electromigration, which in turn are a consequence of a superposition of chemical, temperature, and electrical potential gradients. On the other hand, we propose defect pile-up at particle-particle contacts and subsequent tunneling as a mechanism creating the 'burst-mode' discontinuous densification at the singularities observed at 847 and 905 Degree-Sign C.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2025

Energy Justice Through Energy Storage: Supporting Energy Resilience in Disadvantaged Communities

This paper reviews energy storage technologies as a possible solution to address power outages and mitigate the impacts, enhancing vulnerable communities’ resilience to climate change. More frequent and severe extreme weather events are one of the main consequences of climate change. These events, coupled with the nation’s aging and frail energy infrastructure, are causing many communities throughout the United States to experience more frequent and longer power outages, resulting in economic, health, and social impacts. Impacts from power outages are not equally felt across communities, with disproportionate impacts across communities representing a matter of energy justice. From an energy justice standpoint, programs and policies that facilitate energy storage technologies should be intentionally designed to include distributive, procedural, recognition, and restorative justice.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Wet waste-to-energy resources in the United States

Waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies present an opportunity to recycle organic waste material into renewable energy while offsetting disposal and environmental costs. A key challenge to ensuring economic and environmental viability of WTE is understanding the variability of individual WTE resource characteristics, including their location, amount, and quality. The main objective of this study is to estimate the wet WTE resource potential in the United States and illustrate its geographic distribution. The wet resources considered in this study are wastewater sludge, animal manure, food waste, and FOG (fats, oils, and greases). This study is the first to achieve results below national level, at the finest geographic resolution. Our analysis indicates that about 566 teragrams (Tg) of wet WTE resources are generated annually in the United States. This amount corresponds to about 1 exajoule (EJ), which is sufficient to displace about 18% of the 2015 U.S. on-highway diesel consumption on an energy basis. About half of this potential is generated by animal manure.

waste-to-energy, WTE, water resource, wastewater s↗
DOE OSTI2022

Performance Evaluation of an Advanced Distributed Energy Resource Management Algorithm

This paper presents performance evaluation of a new distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) algorithm via an advanced hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) platform. The HIL platform provides realistic testing in a laboratory environment, including the accurate modeling of sub-transmission and distribution networks, the DERMS software controller, and 84 power hardware solar photovoltaic (PV) inverters, standard communication protocols, and a capacitor bank controller. The DERMS algorithm is also called, Grid-Optimization of Solar (GO-Solar) platform which includes predictive state estimation (PSE) and online multiple objective optimization (OMOO) to dispatch the legacy devices and distributed energy resources (e.g., PV). The voltage regulation performance is evaluated under three scenarios, volt-var smart inverter (baseline), and DERMS control for 100% and 30% of PV. The results show that controlling 30% of PV systems with the GO-Solar platform may provide the best balance of control performance and implementation cost.

distributed energy resource management system (DER↗
DOE OSTI2011

Energy Frontier Research Centers: Helping Win the Energy Innovation Race (2011 EFRC Summit Keynote Address, Secretary of Energy Chu)

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu gave the keynote address at the 2011 EFRC Summit and Forum. In his talk, Secretary Chu highlighted the need to "unleash America's science and research community" to achieve energy breakthroughs. The 2011 EFRC Summit and Forum brought together the EFRC community and science and policy leaders from universities, national laboratories, industry and government to discuss "Science for our Nation's Energy Future." In August 2009, the Office of Science established 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers. The EFRCs are collaborative research efforts intended to accelerate high-risk, high-reward fundamental research, the scientific basis for transformative energy technologies of the future. These Centers involve universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit firms, singly or in partnerships, selected by scientific peer review. They are funded at $2 to $5 million per year for a total planned DOE commitment of $777 million over the initial five-year award period, pending Congressional appropriations. These integrated, multi-investigator Centers are conducting fundamental research focusing on one or more of several “grand challenges” and use-inspired “basic research needs” recently identified in major strategic planning efforts by the scientific community. The purpose of the EFRCs is to integrate the talents and expertise of leading scientists in a setting designed to accelerate research that transforms the future of energy and the environment.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2014

High-energy radiation damage in zirconia: Modeling results

Zirconia is viewed as a material of exceptional resistance to amorphization by radiation damage, and consequently proposed as a candidate to immobilize nuclear waste and serve as an inert nuclear fuel matrix. Here, we perform molecular dynamics simulations of radiation damage in zirconia in the range of 0.1–0.5 MeV energies with account of electronic energy losses. We find that the lack of amorphizability co-exists with a large number of point defects and their clusters. These, importantly, are largely isolated from each other and therefore represent a dilute damage that does not result in the loss of long-range structural coherence and amorphization. We document the nature of these defects in detail, including their sizes, distribution, and morphology, and discuss practical implications of using zirconia in intense radiation environments.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗