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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 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Energy Project Siting, Permitting, and Community Impacts [Slides]

The Energy to Communities (E2C) peer-learning cohort program provides technical assistance to groups of 15 community entities around a common energy topic over the course of 6 months. Every month, participants join a virtual meeting where they hear from experts and exchange strategies and best practices with their peers.This cohort, "Successful Energy Project Implementation" will explore common challenges in implementing energy projects and learn strategies to turn project plans into reality. Each participant will focus on a local energy project or priority as a cornerstone for their learning throughout the series. This presentation focuses on strategies for successful project financing. This workshop is on April 29, 2026.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Advancing Offshore Wind Resource Characterization Using Buoy-based Observations

As countries continue to implement sustainable and renewable energy goals, the need for affordable low-carbon technologies, including those related to offshore wind energy, is accelerating. The U.S. federal government recognizes the environmental and economic benefits of offshore wind development and is taking the necessary steps to overcome critical challenges facing the industry to realize these benefits. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is investing in buoy-mounted lidar systems to facilitate offshore measurement campaigns that will advance our understanding of the offshore environment and provide the observational data needed for model validation, particularly at hub height where offshore observations are particularly lacking. On behalf of the DOE, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory manages a Lidar Buoy Program that facilitates meteorological and oceanographic data collection using validated methods to support the U.S. offshore wind industry. Since being acquired in 2014, two DOE lidar buoys have been deployed on the U.S. east and west coasts; and their data represent the first publicly available multi-seasonal hub height data to be collected in U.S. waters. In addition, the buoys have undergone performance testing, significant upgrades, and a lidar validation campaign to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the lidar data needed to support wind resource characterization and model validation. The Lidar Buoy Program is providing valuable offshore data to the wind energy community, while focusing data collection on areas of acknowledged high priority.

offshore wind energy, lidar buoy, wind resource ch↗
DOE OSTI2023

Assessing Low-Temperature Geothermal Play Types: Relevant Data and Play Fairway Analysis Methods

This data catalog contains information on low temperature geothermal play types. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) supports the Geothermal Heating and Cooling Geospatial Datasets and Analysis project, conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). This project is part of a broader effort to demonstrate the multifaceted value of integrating geothermal power and geothermal heating and cooling technologies into national decarbonization strategies and community energy plans. There is a need to establish baseline low-temperature geothermal resource data sets and evaluate methods for deploying these technologies. This project aims to reduce exploration risk of low temperature geothermal systems by collecting baseline datasets that can be used for Play Fairway Analysis methodologies. This data catalog contains links to publicly available datasets from different sources that can be relevant for the low temperature geothermal systems. This submission contains data catalogs for Alaska, Hawaii, and the Conterminous United States, as well as a technical report on the methods used to classify and asses the geothermal play types.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Assessing Low-Temperature Geothermal Play Types: Relevant Data and Play Fairway Analysis Methods

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) is supporting the Geothermal Heating and Cooling Geospatial Datasets and Analysis project conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as part of a broader effort to demonstrate the multi-faceted value of integrating geothermal power and geothermal heating and cooling (GHC) technologies into national decarbonization plans and community energy plans. Currently, there is a need to establish baseline low-temperature geothermal resource datasets and evaluate methods for deploying these technologies to provide the basis for supporting private sector investment. This project is focused on collecting baseline datasets, updating conceptual models, and creating Play Fairway Analysis (PFA) workflows for low-temperature (<150 degrees Celsius) geothermal resources of different geothermal play types (i.e., sedimentary basin, orogenic belts, and radiogenic geothermal play types) that could be used for geothermal heating and cooling (GHC), combined heat and power (CHP), and other geothermal direct uses (GDU) applications. Low-temperature geothermal resources are defined as reservoirs - natural or engineered - with temperatures <150 degrees Celsius. While the focus in the NREL effort is on GHC, resources at the upper end of this temperature range can also be used for small-scale power generation. This project does not include Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHPs) technologies because they can be effectively developed almost anywhere. Low-temperature geothermal resources have not been studied as extensively as higher- to medium-temperature geothermal resources, but there is recent interest in improving understanding of these types of resources with an uptick of interest in geothermal technologies for decarbonizing heating and cooling systems. In addition, Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) and other emerging technologies for exploiting petrothermal resources have opened the possibility of utilizing deep sedimentary basin systems, where porous media provide permeability and high temperatures can be reached at great depths. This project takes the approach of classifying low- temperature geothermal resources by geothermal play type (GPT). We defined and characterized three major classes of low-temperature GPT: sedimentary basins, orogenic systems, and radiogenic systems. We develop methodologies for evaluating and analyzing the potential for these resources building off the PFA approach to de-risking geothermal exploration and characterization. The proposed PFA approach for low-temperature geothermal resources includes: 1) identifying relevant data (e.g., datasets such bottom-hole temperatures from oil and gas wells, heat flow data, Quaternary faults and stress field data, geophysical data, etc.); 2) grouping and weighting of relevant datasets into PFA criteria (e.g., geological, risk, and economic criteria); 3) uncertainty quantification; 4) developing favorability or common risk maps for low-temperature geothermal resources to identify potential locations for more focused data collection; and 5) estimating electric power generation and heating potential at those locations using the GeoRePORT Resource Size Assessment Tool (RSAT). This project should facilitate future deployment of GHC, CHP, and GDU by providing data, tools, and a workflow applicable to low-temperature geothermal resources. Increased deployment of GHC and GDU will help achieve national and local decarbonization goals.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Assessment of Energy Technology Options for the Island of Molokai, Hawaii: Analysis of Floating Solar, Pumped Storage Hydropower, and Backup Energy Systems

This report documents analysis done by researchers at the National Laboratory of the Rockies and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to evaluate the potential for and explore project concepts of electricity generation and storage additions on the island of Molokai, Hawaii, as identified in the Community Energy Resilience Action Plan (CERAP) by the Molokai Clean Energy Hui (MCEH), Sustainable Molokai, and the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI). These electricity generation and storage additions include distributed photovoltaics (PV), battery energy storage, and generators for critical facilities on the island that can provide backup energy to the facilities during grid disruptions and outages, a floating PV (FPV) system on Kualapuu Reservoir, and pumped storage hydropower (PSH) systems scaled to act as a significant or primary source of energy storage on the Molokai grid.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Assessment of Energy Technology Options for the Island of Molokai, Hawaii: Analysis of Floating Solar, Pumped Storage Hydropower, and Backup Energy Systems [Slides]

This presentation summarizes analysis done by researchers at the National Laboratory of the Rockies and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to evaluate the potential for and explore project concepts of electricity generation and storage additions on the island of Molokai, Hawaii, as identified in the Community Energy Resilience Action Plan (CERAP) by the Molokai Clean Energy Hui (MCEH), Sustainable Molokai, and the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute (HNEI). These electricity generation and storage additions include distributed photovoltaics (PV), battery energy storage, and generators for critical facilities on the island that can provide backup energy to the facilities during grid disruptions and outages, a floating PV (FPV) system on Kualapuu Reservoir, and pumped storage hydropower (PSH) systems scaled to act as a significant or primary source of energy storage on the Molokai grid. This presentation accompanies the full technical report published under the same title.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Forecasting Day-Ahead Solar Irradiance for Puerto Rico Using the WRF Model and NSRDB

Accurately predicting solar energy resources is a major challenge in integrating photovoltaics generation on the electric grid. Numerical weather prediction has been recognized by the solar energy community as a major approach to provide solar resource forecasts at various locations and for a variety of timescales. In this study, as a part of the Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study (PR100), we develop day-head solar irradiance forecast data using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model at 3 km and hourly/5-minute. The global horizontal irradiance (GHI) and direct normal irradiance (DNI) forecasts simulated from the WRF model are postprocessed by a simple optimization method using satellite-derived gridded observations from the National Solar Radiation Data Base (NSRDB) to reduce error and bias of the solar irradiance forecasts covering 2018-2020. The NSRDB contributes to improving the GHI and DNI forecasts and also offers the opportunity for an in-depth analysis to evaluate their accuracy over a wide range of Puerto Rico regions. Preliminary results show overall improvements of GHI forecasts up to 37% (DNI: 15%) for mean absolute error and 97% (DNI: 76%) for mean bias error by applying a postprocessing technique to WRF model output.

data models↗
DOE OSTI2021

Metadata Schemas and Ontologies for Building Energy Applications: A Critical Review and Use Case Analysis

With the increasing digitalization of processes throughout the lifecycle of buildings, data exchanged between stakeholders and between building systems has grown significantly. However, a lack of semantic interoperability between data in different systems is still prevalent, hindering the development of applications that can be reused across buildings and limiting the scalability of innovative solutions. Semantics refers to the description of the meaning of the data in a way that can be consistently understood by applications. Recently, several competing initiatives have been developing metadata schemas and ontologies to express this semantic information for different applications in the building domain. This paper systematically reviews these schemas and conducts an analysis of five of them to evaluate their applicability to three high-value use cases for building operations: energy audits, automated fault detection and diagnostics and optimal control. The survey finds 40 schemas published in the last 10 years but but their actual use in industry is difficult to estimate. Among the five selected ontologies, several gaps are highlighted in relation to the three use cases. Recommendations for the future include better harmonization of these initiatives, more centralized repositories and search engines for these schemas as well as better industry engagement to facilitate their adoption.

Smart Building, Sematic, Metadata, Ontology, Data ↗
DOE OSTI2022

WBS 2.2.1.402 - Wave-SPARC: Systematic Process & Analysis for Reaching Commercialization

Wave-SPARC is empowering the marine energy community with the tools necessary to achieve a significant improvement in techno-economic performance of wave generated grid power. A detailed systems engineering approach simultaneously balances around 100 cost and performance drivers (functional requirements and capabilities) of wave energy converters (WECs). Publicly accessible technology innovation and assessment methods and tools (new to the wave energy sector) have been delivered. They guide technology development trajectories to successful outcomes in less time, at less overall cost, and with less encountered risk. Through the use of these methods and tools along with proven structured inventive techniques the project continues to deliver high potential novel wave energy technology concepts for validation and subsequent development by industry. The intended outcomes are: (1) Invention, assessment, identification, verification and validation of novel and high techno-economic-potential WEC technology concepts to deliver high-confidence "seeds" for subsequent industrial development to full commercial application and economic viability (2) Development and delivery of WEC technology innovation and assessment methodologies and tools and provision of these as services and for free use by industry and the entire sector (3) International collaboration for global best practice alignment of assessment and innovation methods.

innovation↗
DOE OSTI2023

Grand challenges in the digitalisation of wind energy

The availability of large amounts of data is starting to impact how the wind energy community works. From turbine design to plant layout, construction, commissioning, and maintenance and operations, new processes and business models are springing up. This is the process of digitalisation, and it promises improved efficiency and greater insight, ultimately leading to increased energy capture and significant savings for wind plant operators, thus reducing the levelised cost of energy. Digitalisation is also impacting research, where it is both easing and speeding up collaboration, as well as making research results more accessible. This is the basis for innovations that can be taken up by end users. But digitalisation faces barriers. This paper uses a literature survey and the results from an expert elicitation to identify three common industry-wide barriers to the digitalisation of wind energy. Comparison with other networked industries and past and ongoing initiatives to foster digitalisation show that these barriers can only be overcome by wide-reaching strategic efforts, and so we see these as “grand challenges” in the digitalisation of wind energy. They are, first, creating FAIR data frameworks; secondly, connecting people and data to foster innovation; and finally, enabling collaboration and competition between organisations. The grand challenges in the digitalisation of wind energy thus include a mix of technical, cultural, and business aspects that will need collaboration between businesses, academia, and government to solve. Working to mitigate them is the beginning of a dynamic process that will position wind energy as an essential part of a global clean energy future.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Strategies for Residential Energy Efficiency and Community Resilience for Floyd County, Kentucky

This report outlines the technical assistance provided to Floyd County Fiscal Court, Kentucky, and Vision Granted through the U.S. Department of Energy Clean Energy to Communities Expert Match Program. Floyd County, designated as “distressed” and “disadvantaged,” faces significant economic challenges, including limited job prospects, high energy costs, and youth “brain drain.” This technical assistance aims to address these pressing issues by implementing strategies to enhance home energy efficiency and livability while also aligning retrofit efforts with goals for resilience and workforce development. Through targeted guidance, this report aims to empower Floyd County residents and organizations in navigating resources for improving housing conditions, creating workforce opportunities, and enhancing resilience.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Case study on the novel permitting and authorization of PacWave South, a US grid-connected wave energy test facility: Development, challenges, and insights

Marine energy (i.e., energy from waves, tides, currents, and rivers) in the United States is a nascent industry. In particular, permitting processes—an uncertainty for industry advancement that can be costly and time consuming to navigate—have rarely been tested and used for marine energy. The novelty of the marine energy industry and utilization of open ocean permitting processes that were not originally developed for marine energy have led to extensive efforts to gain consensus amongst state and federal regulatory agencies to authorize marine energy projects. In 2021, Oregon State University successfully completed permitting of a wave energy test facility, called PacWave South, off the coast of Oregon, which is designed to advance wave energy research and development. This article documents the multi-year process that Oregon State University used to receive federal and state authorization for a pre-permitted commercial-scale grid connected facility by detailing the development of the test facility, management of uncertainty and challenges, and key decisions. The PacWave South case study provides insights for the larger marine energy community as the industry advances towards commercialization.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
DOE OSTI2022

Three Modeling Tools Accelerate the Development of Marine Energy Technologies

Enough power flows through U.S. rivers and oceans to meet up to 60% of the country's electricity needs. But before today's early-stage marine energy technologies can harness some of that power, they need to overcome a few challenges, like a volatile ocean and high development costs. And to do that, technology developers need reliable tools to understand and overcome the challenges they face. That's why researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have developed several open-source, validated, and customizable numerical tools for technology developers. With these tools, the marine energy community can assess their devices' potential power output, predict how their technologies might handle extreme loads (like extreme waves), and learn how changing one component might affect their device's performance. The lab's models generate highly accurate, reliable, robust data that can help marine energy devices leap from the computer screen to the ocean and, eventually, the power grid.

current energy↗
DOE OSTI2022

2022 FORCE Development Status Update

Due to the rapidly changing nature of the energy landscape in both the U.S. and abroad, including the increase in non-dispatchable variable renewable energy (VRE) deployment and the abundance of carbonbased dispatchable fuels, the Integrated Energy Systems (IES) program under the Department of Energy (DOE) has been engaged in determining whether IES could assist in providing nuclear power plants (NPPs) with a viable strategy for achieving future economic competitiveness. This includes enhanced dispatch flexibility for NPPs, thanks to thermal and electrical storage technology as well as the generation of ancillary commodities such as hydrogen, desalinated water, and synthetic fuels from the heat generated by NPPs. The technical and economic viability of these systems is of primary concern to the IES program, with the intent of providing insight to the wider nuclear energy community at large.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Energy Assets Transformation Web Mapping Application

This submission contains the link and geospatial materials used in the Energy Assets Transformation Web Mapping Application. The zip file contains 19 geospatial layers in a file geodatabase called EAT.gdb to be grouped in the following categories. 1. Industrial Assets: Coal Generation Units Retirements 2012-2040 (EIA); Examples of Repurposing Projects (32 projects in total); Abandoned Coal Mines (CORD, SkyTruth); Abandoned or Orphaned Wells (for ten states only). 2. Energy Transition Communities: 48C (e) Tax Credits - Designated Energy Communities (IRA); Index of Deep Disadvantage; Local Energy Action Program (LEAP); EJ Index for Proximity to Hazardous Waste (EPA). 3. Regional Landscape: State-Level Funding Programs (relevant to repurposing projects, for 2022 and 2023 only); Coal Flows from Mine to Plant 2021 (EIA), Variable Renewable Energy Shares (Wind and Solar, 2021, EIA). 4. Supporting Infrastructure: Railroads (HIFLD), Electric Power Transmission Lines (HIFLD), Major Highways (NHPN, DOT), Major Ports (National Atlas of the U.S.); Independent System Operators (HIFLD), NERC Regions and Subregions (HIFLD).

abandoned coal mines↗
DOE OSTI2024

Opportunities for Pumped Storage Hydropower under the Inflation Reduction Act [Slides]

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) creates significant incentives for clean energy technologies including pumped storage hydropower (PSH). The investment tax credit (ITC) is expected to sunset in 2033 (or later). This decade-long window of opportunity can accommodate the lead times typically necessary for developing PSH. The ITC for PSH likely ranges from 6%-50%. Portions of the ITC are spatially dependent. 22 states have the potential for deployment of PSH at a feasible site with the maximum ITC of 50%, based on currently defined areas under the energy community tax credit bonus. Regions including the central Rockies, Appalachia and the California-Nevada border have especially high combined potential for site feasibility and ITC.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2016

Bearingless Flywheel Systems, Winding and Control Schemes, and Sensorless Control

Flywheel systems are disclosed that provide increased energy density and operational effectiveness. A first bearingless motor and a second bearingless motor may be configured to simultaneously suspend the central rotor in a radial direction and to rotate the central rotor. However, certain implementations may have one motor or more than two motors, depending on the design. A plurality of the flywheel systems may be collectively controlled to perform community energy storage with higher storage capacities than individual flywheel systems.

Jansen, Ralph H↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Surface Radiation Budget Project: A Look Back and A Look Forward

The NASA Langley Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) project, historically associated with GEWEX, has provided estimates of surface and TOA shortwave and longwave radiative fluxes using International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) cloud properties and radiances as primary input. The first release was in 1995 (Whitlock et al., 1995) at daily 2.5° resolution. Subsequent releases have improved physics, temporal and spatial resolution, as well as increasing the total length of the time series. Release 4 in 2019 (Kummerow et al., 2019) is on a 1° nested grid, with temporal resolutions from 3-hourly to daily and monthly. It originally spanned from July 1983 to December 2017 and has since been extended through 2019. Release 4 uses the ISCCP H series of data, a complete reprocessing which retains more pixels than the previous D series, used in prior SRB versions. SRB data has been used extensively by a wide range of customers, including but not limited to the solar energy community, climate modelers, architects, oceanographers, and the agricultural community. It is an especial feature of SRB that global radiation budget data are available from the 1983 through 2000 period, which is prior to CERES providing alternate data, and then 2000 through near present to provide overlap coverage. Here we use the 36.5 year record of SRB Release 4 to examine the changes in shortwave and longwave fluxes over the period, including the changes in different regions of the globe. We examine energy budget features such as hemispheric symmetry and implied meridional transport of energy. We look at the variability of these features prior to and during the CERES period and compare to later products. We also look at Release 5, currently under development. This version will provide 0.5° resolution. In addition to surface and TOA radiative fluxes it will include fluxes at several atmospheric layers, and some spectral features beyond the broadband shortwave and longwave fluxes in Release 4 and prior. The shortwave algorithm is undergoing a complete change from the Pinker-Laszlo algorithm. Shortwave fluxes will now be calculated from a forward call to the Fu-Liou radiative transfer model as modified by the CERES team (Rose et al., 2006). Input datasets are being improved, including surface properties, atmospheric profiles of temperature and humidity, aerosols, and total solar irradiance. Preliminary results from Release 5 and comparisons to Release 4 will be shown.

Earth Radiation Budget↗