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DOE OSTI2014

Sampling Approaches for Multi-Domain Internet Performance Measurement Infrastructures

The next-generation of high-performance networks being developed in DOE communities are critical for supporting current and emerging data-intensive science applications. The goal of this project is to investigate multi-domain network status sampling techniques and tools to measure/analyze performance, and thereby provide “network awareness” to end-users and network operators in DOE communities. We leverage the infrastructure and datasets available through perfSONAR, which is a multi-domain measurement framework that has been widely deployed in high-performance computing and networking communities; the DOE community is a core developer and the largest adopter of perfSONAR. Our investigations include development of semantic scheduling algorithms, measurement federation policies, and tools to sample multi-domain and multi-layer network status within perfSONAR deployments. We validate our algorithms and policies with end-to-end measurement analysis tools for various monitoring objectives such as network weather forecasting, anomaly detection, and fault-diagnosis. In addition, we develop a multi-domain architecture for an enterprise-specific perfSONAR deployment that can implement monitoring-objective based sampling and that adheres to any domain-specific measurement policies.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2013

U.S. DOE Southeast Clean Energy Application Center

Between 2010 and 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) funded the Southeast Clean Energy Application Center (SE-CEAC), co-located at the North Carolina Solar Center at NC State University (NCSU) and at Mississippi State University. The SE-CEAC was one of eight regional CEACs established to promote and assist in transforming the market for combined heat and power (CHP), district energy (DE) and waste heat to power (WHP) throughout the U.S. CHP locates power generation at the point of demand and makes productive use of the residual thermal energy for process and space heating in factories and businesses, thus lowering the cost of meeting electricity and heat requirements and increasing energy efficiency. The overall goal of the SE-CEAC was to support end-user implementation and overall market transformation for CHP and related clean energy technologies. Five objectives were targeted to achieve the goal: 1. Market Analysis and Information Dissemination 2. Outreach and Education for Potential CHP End-users 3. Policy Support for State and Regional Stakeholders 4. Technical Assistance to Support CHP Deployment 5. Collaboration with DOE and other CEACs Throughout the project, the CEACs provided key services of education and outreach, technical assistance and market analysis in support of project objectives. These services were very effective at achieving key objectives of assisting prospective CHP end-users and informing policy makers, utilities and others about the benefits of CHP. There is a marked increase in the awareness of CHP technologies and applications as an energy resource among end-users, policymakers, utility regulators, electric utilities and natural gas utilities in the Southeast region as a result. At the end of 2013, a number of best-practice policies for CHP were applied or under consideration in various Southeast states. The SE-CEAC met its targets for providing technical assistance with over 50 analyses delivered for 412 MW of potential end-users CHP applications. Of these 50 MW of projects were under consideration at the end of 2013 based on SE-CEAC technical assistance findings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

2014 Vehicle Technologies Market Report

This is the sixth edition of this report, which details the major trends in U.S. light-duty vehicle and medium/heavy truck markets as well as the underlying trends that caused them. This report is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy s (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO), and, in accord with its mission, pays special attention to the progress of high-efficiency and alternative-fuel technologies. After opening with a discussion of energy and economics, this report features a section each on the light-duty vehicle and heavy/medium truck markets, and concluding with a section each on technology and policy. The first section on Energy and Economics discusses the role of transportation energy and vehicle markets on a national (and even international) scale. The following section examines Light-Duty Vehicle use, markets, manufacture, and supply chains. The discussion of Medium and Heavy Trucks offers information on truck sales and technologies specific to heavy trucks. The Technology section offers information on alternative fuel vehicles and infrastructure, and the Policy section concludes with information on recent, current, and near-future Federal policies like the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. In total, the information contained in this report is intended to communicate a fairly complete understanding of U.S. highway transportation energy through a series of easily digestible tables and figures.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Research and Development Opportunities for Technologies to Influence Water Consumption Behavior

In April 2015, Argonne National Laboratory hosted a two-day workshop that convened water experts and stakeholders from across industry, government, and academia to undertake three primary tasks: 1) identify technology characteristics that are favorable for motivating behavioral change, 2) identify barriers that have prevented the development and market adoption of technologies with these characteristics in the water sector, and 3) identify concrete research and development pathways that could be undertaken to overcome these barriers, increase the penetration of technologies that influence water consumption behavior, and ultimately reduce domestic water consumption. While efforts to reduce water consumption have gained momentum in recent years, there are a number of key barriers that have limited the effectiveness of such efforts. Chief among these is the fact that many consumers have limited awareness of their water consumption patterns because of poor data availability, and/or are unmotivated to reduce their consumption because of low costs and split incentives. Without improved data availability and stronger price signals, it will be difficult to effect true transformative behavioral change. This report also reviews a number of technology characteristics that have successfully motivated behavioral change in other sectors, as well as several technologies that could be developed specifically for the water sector. Workshop participants discussed how technologies that provide active feedback and promote measurable goals and social accountability have successfully influenced changes in other types of behavior. A range of regulatory and policy actions that could be implemented to support such efforts are also presented. These include institutional aggregation, revenue decoupling, and price structure reforms. Finally, several R&D pathways were proposed, including efforts to identify optimal communication strategies and to better understand consumer perceptions and psychology as they relate to human behavior regarding water consumption. The findings presented here can help to inform policy makers as they develop new policies and seek to support new research to help consumers use water more efficiently. It is our hope that these findings will also be utilized to prioritize topics for additional follow-up workshops to address individual issues and barriers more directly and in more detail. The goal of such future workshops will be to develop specific solutions, research plans, and technology development pathways that can be undertaken to increase the market penetration of technologies that effect behavioral change and reduce water consumption.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2017

University of Rhode Island Regional Earth Systems Center

The primary objective of this program was to establish the URI Regional Earth System Center (“Center”) that would enhance overall societal wellbeing (health, financial, environmental) by utilizing the best scientific information and technology to achieve optimal policy decisions with maximum stakeholder commitment for energy development, coastal environmental management, water resources protection and human health protection, while accelerating regional economic growth. The Center was to serve to integrate existing URI institutional strengths in energy, coastal environmental management, water resources, and human wellbeing. This integrated research, educational and public/private sector outreach Center was to focus on local, state and regional resources. The centerpiece activity of the Center was in the development and implementation of integrated assessment models (IAMs) that both ‘downscaled’ global observations and interpolated/extrapolated regional observations for analyzing the complexity of interactions among humans and the natural climate system to further our understanding and, ultimately, to predict the future state of our regional earth system. The Center was to begin by first ‘downscaling’ existing global earth systems management tools for studying the causes of local, state and regional climate change and potential social and environmental consequences, with a focus on the regional resources identified above. The Center would ultimately need to address the full feedbacks inherent in the nonlinear earth systems by quantifying the “upscaled” impacts of those regional changes on the global earth system. Through an interacting suite of computer simulations that are informed by observations from the nation’s evolving climate observatories, the Center activities integrates climate science, technology, economics, and social policy into forecasts that will inform solutions to pressing issues in regional climate change science, ‘green economy’ investment and climate policy. These project objectives were designed as part of a 5-year program, which would have constituted the initial phase for the establishment of the Center. Almost immediately (i.e. before receiving even the first year of funding) we were informed that we would not be receiving any funding beyond the initial phase; one year. This seriously impacted our ability to deliver on our objectives and, with that, a re-scoping of the Center priorities was designed to fit the 1-year constraints on funding. It was decided that, given the Center’s emphasis on building IAMs, the best way to proceed was to first focus on one particularly important component of the IAM – a natural sciences model that would be useful for research and forecasting of the circualation/ecology/biogeochemistry of RI’s coastal waters. We have succeeded on that necessarily more limited objective, as we will describe below.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2016

Energy Finance Data Warehouse Manual

The Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis s finance team (EPSA-50) requires a suite of automated applications that can extract specific data from a flexible data warehouse (where datasets characterizing energy-related finance, economics and markets are maintained and integrated), perform relevant operations and creatively visualize them to provide a better understanding of what policy options affect various operators/sectors of the electricity system. In addition, the underlying data warehouse should be structured in the most effective and efficient way so that it can become increasingly valuable over time. This report describes the Energy Finance Data Warehouse (EFDW) framework that has been developed to accomplish the defined requirement above. We also specifically dive into the Sankey generator use-case scenario to explain the components of the EFDW framework and their roles. An excel-based data warehouse was used in the creation of the energy finance Sankey diagram and other detailed data finance visualizations to support energy policy analysis. The framework also captures the methodology, calculations and estimations analysts used for the calculation as well as relevant sources so newer analysts can build on work done previously.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

High-Octane Mid-Level Ethanol Blend Market Assessment

The United States government has been promoting increased use of biofuels, including ethanol from non-food feedstocks, through policies contained in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The objective is to enhance energy security, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and provide economic benefits. However, the United States has reached the ethanol blend wall, where more ethanol is produced domestically than can be blended into standard gasoline. Nearly all ethanol is blended at 10 volume percent (vol%) in gasoline. At the same time, the introduction of more stringent standards for fuel economy and GHG tailpipe emissions is driving research to increase the efficiency of spark ignition (SI) engines. Advanced strategies for increasing SI engine efficiency are enabled by higher octane number (more highly knock-resistant) fuels. Ethanol has a research octane number (RON) of 109, compared to typical U.S. regular gasoline at 91-93. Accordingly, high RON ethanol blends containing 20 vol% to 40 vol% ethanol are being extensively studied as fuels that enable design of more efficient engines. These blends are referred to as high-octane fuel (HOF) in this report. HOF could enable dramatic growth in the U.S. ethanol industry, with consequent energy security and GHG emission benefits, while also supporting introduction of more efficient vehicles. HOF could provide the additional ethanol demand necessary for more widespread deployment of cellulosic ethanol. However, the potential of HOF can be realized only if it is adopted by the motor fuel marketplace. This study assesses the feasibility, economics, and logistics of this adoption by the four required participants--drivers, vehicle manufacturers, fuel retailers, and fuel producers. It first assesses the benefits that could motivate these participants to adopt HOF. Then it focuses on the drawbacks and barriers that these participants could face when adopting HOF and proposes strategies--including incentives and policies--to curtail these barriers. These curtailment strategies are grouped into scenarios that are then modeled to investigate their feasibility and explore the dynamics involved in HOF deployment. This report does not advocate for or against incentives or policies, but presents simulations of their effects.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Water Quality Projects Summary for the Mid-Columbia and Cumberland River Systems

Scheduling and operational control of hydropower systems is accompanied with a keen awareness of the management of water use, environmental effects, and policy, especially within the context of strict water rights policy and generation maximization. This is a multi-objective problem for many hydropower systems, including the Cumberland and Mid-Columbia river systems. Though each of these two systems have distinct operational philosophies, hydrologic characteristics, and system dynamics, they both share a responsibility to effectively manage hydropower and the environment, which requires state-of-the art improvements in the approaches and applications for water quality modeling. The Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed tools for total dissolved gas (TDG) prediction on the Mid-Columbia River and a decision-support system used for hydropower generation and environmental optimization on the Cumberland River. In conjunction with IIHR - Hydroscience & Engineering, The University of Iowa and University of Colorado s Center for Advanced Decision Support for Water and Environmental Systems (CADSWES), ORNL has managed the development of a TDG predictive methodology at seven dams along the Mid-Columbia River and has enabled the ability to utilize this methodology for optimization of operations at these projects with the commercially available software package Riverware. ORNL has also managed the collaboration with Vanderbilt University and Lipscomb University to develop a state-of-the art method for reducing high-fidelity water quality modeling results into surrogate models which can be used effectively within the context of optimization efforts to maximize generation for a reservoir system based on environmental and policy constraints. The novel contribution of these efforts is the ability to predict water quality conditions with simplified methodologies at the same level of accuracy as more complex and resource intensive computing methods. These efforts were designed to incorporate well into existing hydropower and reservoir system scheduling models, with runtimes that are comparable to existing software tools. In addition, the transferability of these tools to assess other systems is enhanced due the use of simplistic and easily attainable values for inputs, straight-forward calibration of predictive equation coefficients, and standardized comparison of traditionally familiar outputs.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2017

2016 Vehicle Technologies Market Report

This is the seventh edition of this report, which details the major trends in U.S. light-duty vehicle and medium/heavy truck markets. This report is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy s (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO), and, in accord with its mission, pays special attention to the progress of high-efficiency and alternative-fuel technologies. After opening with a discussion of energy and economics, this report features a section each on the light-duty vehicle and heavy/medium truck markets, and concluding with a section each on technology and policy. The first section on Energy and Economics discusses the role of transportation energy and vehicle markets on a national (and even international) scale. For example, Figures 12 through 14 discuss the connections between global oil prices and U.S. GDP, and Figures 21 and 22 show U.S. employment in the automotive sector. The following section examines Light-Duty Vehicle use, markets, manufacture, and supply chains. Figures 27 through 69 offer snapshots of major light-duty vehicle brands in the United States and Figures 73 through 85 examine the performance and efficiency characteristics of vehicles sold. The discussion of Medium and Heavy Trucks offers information on truck sales (Figures 94 through 98) and fuel use (Figures 101 through 104). The Technology section offers information on alternative fuel vehicles and infrastructure (Figures 109 through 123), and the Policy section concludes with information on recent, current, and near-future Federal policies like the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard (Figures 135 through 142). In total, the information contained in this report is intended to communicate a fairly complete understanding of U.S. highway transportation energy through a series of easily digestible nuggets. Suggestions for future expansion, additional information, or other improvements are most welcome.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Establishing a Commercial Buildings Energy Data Framework for India: A Comprehensive Look at Data Collection Approaches, Use Cases and Institutions

Enhancing energy efficiency of the commercial building stock is an important aspect of any national energy policy. Understanding how buildings use energy is critical to formulating any new policy that may impact energy use, underscoring the importance of credible data. Data enables informed decision making and good quality data is essential for policy makers to prioritize energy saving strategies and track implementation. Given the uniqueness of the buildings sector and challenges to collecting relevant energy data, this study characterizes various elements involved in pertinent data collection and management, with the specific focus on well-defined data requirements, appropriate methodologies and processes, feasible data collection mechanisms, and approaches to institutionalizing the collection process. This report starts with a comprehensive review of available examples of energy data collection frameworks for buildings across different countries. The review covers the U.S. experience in the commercial buildings sector, the European experience in the buildings sector and other data collection initiatives in Singapore and China to capture the more systematic efforts in Asia in the commercial sector. To provide context, the review includes a summary and status of disparate efforts in India to collect and use commercial building energy data. Using this review as a key input, the study developed a data collection framework for India with specific consideration to relevant use cases. Continuing with the framework for data collection, this study outlines the key performance indicators applicable to the use cases and their collection feasibility, as well as immediate priorities of the participating stakeholders. It also discusses potential considerations for data collection and the possible approaches for survey design. With the specific purpose of laying out the possible ways to structure and organize data collection institutionally, the study collates existing mechanisms to analyze building energy performance in India and opportunities for standardizing data collection. This report describes the existing capacities and resources for establishing an institutional framework for data collection, the legislation and mandates that support such activity, and identifies roles and responsibilities of the relevant ministries and organizations. Finally, the study presents conclusions and identifies two major data collection strategies within the existing legal framework.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2017

The SURE House (Solar Decathlon 2015)

Coastal towns and cities across the Northeastern US, with their high population density, aged utility infrastructure, and unique geography, are increasingly vulnerable to climate change related storm events. In October 2012 superstorm Sandy highlighted the fragility of our current coastal building types and made clear the need for a new model of design and construction which works to understand and mitigate these weaknesses. Dramatic changes in public policy, championed by both The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) are driving the rebuilding of these shore communities, often resulting in costly renovations, un-sustainable neighborhood configurations and in direct conflict with concurrent government policies such as The American with Disabilities Act (ADA). The SURE HOUSE demonstrates a series of new design solutions to these conflicting public policies and environmental imperatives. At Stevens Institute of Technology, the 2015 Solar Decathlon started with the challenge: Can we design a home for coastal New Jersey that dramatically reduces its energy use while protecting itself from the realities of a changing, more extreme climate? The SURE HOUSE merges the iconic 20th century shore home with 21st century building science. Utilizing innovative renewable energy technologies, a ‘Passive House’ level building envelope, and rugged glass-fiber-composite materials to flood-proof the home, the SURE HOUSE is a high-performance, net-zero-energy home, armored against extreme weather, designed for the contemporary lifestyle of the Jersey Shore and other vulnerable coastal communities. SUSTAINABLE At Stevens, we recognize that energy use in the home and workplace is directly connected to the growing problem of climate change. Reducing our energy consumption by designing higher performing, compact homes that are both functional, comfortable and desirable is the first critical step towards a modern, sustainable architecture for New Jersey and beyond. This is what informed the architectural design of the house. Configured about a compact form, thickly insulated and air-sealed walls eliminate thermal bridging and minimize energy losses while advanced glazing brings in free solar heat during the winter months. As a result of these passive design strategies, the SURE HOUSE has a greatly reduced carbon footprint requiring 91% less energy than a typical New Jersey home. Photovoltaic (PV) arrays on both the rooftop and operable shutters easily provide energy in excess of the home’s modest demands. The Stevens team considers a truly sustainable home in the era of climate change, one that prioritizes low energy use, and integrates right-sized renewable generation to supply the home’s needs. Low consumption, low production. RESILIENT In October of 2012, Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc along the east coast of the US. In New Jersey alone there was an estimated 29.4 billion dollars in damages, 346,000 homes affected, and almost two and a half million people left without power, in some cases for over 10 days. Recovery from this storm and associated flooding is ongoing to this day, as many New Jersey homeowners grapple with the large costs of rebuilding and struggle to adapt to complicated new home building regulations. Damage from this storm to Hoboken, the home of the Stevens Institute of Technology’s campus, and to the New Jersey shore was extensive and many students on the SURE HOUSE team were directly affected by this historic event. The Stevens design team recognizes that in a world of more frequent and stronger storms, the ability to absorb and adapt to change is more important than ever. Successfully weathering the next storm and its aftermath is one of the primary goals in the design of the SURE HOUSE prototype. The SURE HOUSE introduces unique ‘dry flood-proofing’ methods to residential construction. Innovative wall and floor flood-proofing, utilizing durable composite sheathing materials adapted from the boating industry, were developed by the student team to render the SURE House’s building envelope flood proof up to the FEMA AE 6/7 Zone (+ 6/7 feet of water above sea-level). Designed and fabricated utilizing glass-fiber composite materials, the custom storm shutter system serves to protect the large glazed openings of the home from both air-borne debris impact and water infiltration during a storm event while also providing deterrence from the vandalism that often occurs in the aftermath of a calamitous event. During extended power outages, a ‘resilient’ solar array is capable of supplying critical amounts of energy and hot water to the home, without the use of battery storage or grid infrastructure. PV Description AC GRID-TIED PV SYSTEM The SURE HOUSE solar system consists of two distinct arrays, the grid-tied rooftop array which produces AC Powerand the shutter-mounted array which converts DC power generated by the modules directly into usable heat for the domestic hot water (DHW). The roof-mounted AC grid-tied array is comprised of three strings, two 11 module strings connected to an SMA SB 5000TL-US-223 inverter and a single 10 module string equipped and an SMA SB 3000TL-US-22 central inverter. All modules for the rooftop AC array are LG MonoX 2804 watt solar panels, chosen for their durability and efficiency. Inverter sizing and string size are optimized to the electrical characteristics of the chosen PV modules and the desired energy production, see Appendix 5B. The SURE HOUSE is projected to produce 12,353 kWh per year to meet 6,157 kWh per year of estimated consumption. Solar modules for the two AC grid-tied sub arrays are mounted on the main roof surface of the SURE HOUSE with a 10 degree tilt angle using a partially-ballasted polyethylene roof mounting system made by Renusol, which is particularly suited to the corrosive salt air of a coastal environment. This method was chosen for its installation simplicity and to limit detrimental roof penetrations. The 10 degree tilt optimizes the energy generated per roof area at a lower price, see Appendix 5A, and ensures that there is minimal wind uplift. DC SOLAR ELECTRIC DOMESTIC HOT WATER The SURE HOUSE’s approach to sustainable and resilient domestic hot water (DHW) consists of a unique, custom engineered DC solar electric hot water system. Employing the use of Advanced Energy’s DC electric PV heater (DCPVH)5 to heat domestic water well beyond the draw temperature, the SURE HOUSE is able to obtain a remarkably high solar fraction of 75% or more. The custom modified 80 gallon Vaughn DHW tank acts as a large solar ‘battery’ that stores heat energy in the form of hot water at almost 150 degrees, harvesting energy when the sun is out for use later in the day or overnight. The system, which uses electricity rather than heated fluid, is distinct from traditional ‘solar thermal’ systems by eliminating the dangers and associated maintenance issues of fluid based systems. By forgoing the use of external fluid loops, overheated solar collectors and pipes are not an issue for the SURE HOUSE system which never needs any yearly or seasonal flushing. In weather conditions where the integrated DCPVH unit cannot produce enough hot water via solar energy alone, the Vaughn hot water tank comes factory made with an AC powered 2.6 COP heat pump and a AC heating coil that serve as back-up heating elements. The DCPVH is powered by a DC array consisting of 10 custom-made Solbian by PVilion 180 watt, monocrystalline, flexible solar modules6. The Solbian modules are directly mounted to the top half of the operable storm shutters on the south façade of the SURE HOUSE. The SURE HOUSE team worked closely with PVillion, a PV system designer specializing in flexible architectural photovoltaics, to design an adhesive system that works with the glass-fiber storm shutter surface in a reliable manner over an extended period. Because this system operates in DC-only mode and never connects to the municipal power grid, the system can continue to create hot water safely and effectively even during grid disruption events. This hot water, and the energy stored within it, could be used for a range of activities including washing and cooking to more elaborate hydronic heating systems as desired. See Appendix 6 for system engineering, sizing and modeling.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Benefits of Leapfrogging to Superefficiency and Low Global Warming Potential Refrigerants in Room Air Conditioning

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) emitted from uses such as refrigerants and thermal insulating foam, are now the fastest growing greenhouse gases (GHGs), with global warming potentials (GWP) thousands of times higher than carbon dioxide (CO2). Because of the short lifetime of these molecules in the atmosphere, mitigating the amount of these short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) provides a faster path to climate change mitigation than control of CO2 alone. This has led to proposals from Africa, Europe, India, Island States, and North America to amend the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (Montreal Protocol) to phase-down high-GWP HFCs. Simultaneously, energy efficiency market transformation programs such as standards, labeling and incentive programs are endeavoring to improve the energy efficiency for refrigeration and air conditioning equipment to provide life cycle cost, energy, GHG, and peak load savings. In this paper we provide an estimate of the magnitude of such GHG and peak electric load savings potential, for room air conditioning, if the refrigerant transition and energy efficiency improvement policies are implemented either separately or in parallel. We find that implementing HFC refrigerant transition and energy efficiency improvement policies in parallel for room air conditioning, roughly doubles the benefit of either policy implemented separately. We estimate that shifting the 2030 world stock of room air conditioners from the low efficiency technology using high-GWP refrigerants to higher efficiency technology and low-GWP refrigerants in parallel would save between 340-790 gigawatts (GW) of peak load globally, which is roughly equivalent to avoiding 680-1550 peak power plants of 500MW each. This would save 0.85 GT/year annually in China equivalent to over 8 Three Gorges dams and over 0.32 GT/year annually in India equivalent to roughly twice India’s 100GW solar mission target. While there is some uncertainty associated with emissions and growth projections, moving to efficient room air conditioning (~30% more efficient than current technology) in parallel with low-GWP refrigerants in room air conditioning could avoid up to ~25 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2030, ~33 billion in 2040, and ~40 billion in 2050, i.e. cumulative savings up to 98 billion tonnes of CO2 by 2050. Therefore, superefficient room ACs using low-GWP refrigerants merit serious consideration to maximize peak load reduction and GHG savings.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2018

Energy Recovery Hydropower: Prospects for Off-Setting Electricity Costs for Agricultural, Municipal, and Industrial Water Providers and Users; July 2017 - September 2017

Energy recovery hydropower is one of the most cost-effective types of new hydropower development because it is constructed utilizing existing infrastructure, and it is typically able to complete Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) review in 60 days. Recent changes in federal and state policy have supported energy recovery hydropower. In addition, some states have developed programs and policies to support energy recovery hydropower, including resource assessments, regulatory streamlining initiatives, and grant and loan programs to reduce project development costs. This report examines current federal and state policy drivers for energy recovery hydropower, reviews market trends, and looks ahead at future federal resource assessments and hydropower reform legislation.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Establishing a commercial building energy data framework for India

Buildings account for over 40% of the world’s energy consumption and are therefore a key contributor to a country’s energy as well as carbon budget. Understanding how buildings use energy is critical to understanding how related policies may impact energy use. Data enables decision making, and good quality data arms consumers with the tools to compare their energy performance to their peers, allowing them to differentiate their buildings in the real estate market on the basis of their energy footprint. Good quality data are also essential for policy makers to prioritize their energy saving strategies and track implementation. The United States’ Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) is an example of a successful data framework that is highly useful for governmental and nongovernmental initiatives related to benchmarking energy forecasting, rating systems and metrics, and more. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) in India developed the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) and launched the Star Labeling program for a few energy-intensive building segments as a significant first step. However, a data driven policy framework for systematically targeting energy efficiency in both new construction and existing buildings has largely been missing. There is no quantifiable mechanism currently in place to track the impact of code adoption through regular reporting/survey of energy consumption in the commercial building stock. In this paper we present findings from our study that explored use cases and approaches for establishing a commercial buildings data framework for India.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2015

Technology inventory: energy efficiency measures for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in the United States

Energy efficiency is expected to continue to be one of main levers for governments to address the energy and climate crisis. While a diverse mix of energy efficiency programs has been regarded as an important part of governmental actions, an energy efficiency policy or program needs to identify and assess eligible savings measures, i.e., specific technologies or practices, for designing key features, e.g., target type, target stringency, covered load, and cost recovery. This report briefly discusses U.S. energy efficiency policies and programs, explores publicly available resources of energy efficiency measures for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in the U.S., and describes how to compile key measures and characteristics into an integrated spreadsheet database. The database in the initial version offers, for more than 1,200 measures, efficiency or improvement potential, technical notes, costs at a given year, where applicable. Energy efficiency measures compiled here could play an important role in determining savings targets and target stringency under a potential energy efficiency policy such as an energy efficiency resource standard in Korea, and offer significant opportunities for energy efficiency improvement.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

A Review of the CO 2 Pipeline Infrastructure in the U.S.

This report provides an overview of the state of CO 2 pipeline infrastructure, both the existing and the current planned expansion based on industry announcements. In addition, EP-NEMS, a modified version of EIA's 2014 NEMS model, was used to run three cases in order to provide a snapshot of potential CO 2 pipeline expansion under various carbon policy scenarios. The three scenarios studied were a reference case, an extended policies case (Cap40), and a carbon price case (CP25). The report also contains an overview of the current permitting, regulations, and policies involved with CO 2 pipeline infrastructure.

03 NATURAL GAS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Smart DG Hub Resilient Solar Project Final Report

Hurricanes, unstable fossil fuel supplies and increased energy loads have revealed the vulnerability of America’s electric grids. Renewable energy has emerged as a viable option; however in order for this sector to reach its full potential it needs to be paired with storage. For example, all of the solar installations in New York City in 2014 were wired to automatically shut down during grid outages for safety reasons and lacked battery backup or other means to function during outages. Pairing solar with batteries can provide critical power needs and reduce dependency on delivered fuel. Additionally, resilient solar systems can also provide benefits outside of emergencies such as utility bill savings and grid support services. Solar+Storage needed a pathway through regulatory, policy and financial hurdles, some of which are unique to urban environments. Sustainable CUNY of the City University of New York (CUNY) formed the Smart Distributed Generation (DG) Hub to develop a strategic pathway to a resilient distributed energy system that integrates storage into resiliency planning and provide support to the grid on peak power days. Through the Smart DG Hub Resilient Solar Project, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as well as the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, the New York Power Authority and private funding, Sustainable CUNY worked with project partners - including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Meister Consultant Group (now Cadmus), subject matter experts at utility companies, and authorities having jurisdiction - to develop a roadmap for the greater deployment of solar+storage as well as a toolkit of resources. Ultimately, in addition to the completed deliverables of multiple resources, the project established a baseline of the current policy, financial, and market landscape, and an understanding of which key areas would require further actions. The DG Hub’s collaborative platform and subject matter expertise gained through this project led directly to a new award from the NYS Energy Research & Development Authority to continue CUNY’s work in targeted areas including energy storage permitting and stakeholder education, similar to the way DOE’s prior support had sowed the initial seeds for the growth of the solar market in NYC, to the NYS market. Finally, the Resilient Solar Project helped inform the New York City (NYC) administration, leading to a significant policy development that included Mayor Bill de Blasio setting a city-wide storage goal of 100 MW by 2020, the first of any city in the country.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Additive Manufacturing and Nuclear Security: Calibrating Rewards and Risks

In a security environment marked by a high degree of technological dynamism, additive manufacturing (AM) stands out for its special significance. The AM field has emerged from infancy, with many new and potential applications in the commercial and military sectors. Its potential impact on nuclear security is a matter of rising debate, with some emphasizing the disruptive consequences of AM competition for international stability and others emphasizing the disruptive benefits for the United States. This essay addresses both aspects and draws on a technical analysis to inform the further development of U.S. policy. From a nuclear-security perspective, additive manufacturing offers both rewards and risks for the United States and its allies. The rewards are primarily (1) reduced scale of effort and cost in maintaining weapons-production infrastructure and (2) greatly increased responsiveness and agility in production infrastructure. Both these benefits are long-standing U.S. policy goals. The risks derive from the potential impact of AM on foreign nuclear weapons programs and are of three kinds. Those impacts will likely be a function of the degree of technical sophistication of the foreign actor. Non-state actors and entry-level proliferants pose modest AM risks relative to more advanced states, including both existing nuclear-weapon- states and those developed countries with a high degree of nuclear latency. A critical factor in predicting the impact of AM is current uncertainty as to the utility of AM techniques in the fabrication of special nuclear materials. To meet the emerging challenges of AM, U.S. policy makers face a number of decisions regarding which benefits to seek, how much risk to accept, and how to reduce that risk. The basic strategic approach of the United States to the AM problem is sound, but some fine-tuning is necessary and appropriate at this time. The good news is that we have time to act; the bad news is that the time to act decisively may be shorter than we would wish.

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