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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

The CanBikeCO Full Pilot: Long-Term Results and Analysis

E-bikes have been quickly growing in popularity in recent years. Access to e-bikes poses an opportunity to improve mobility options as a comparatively inexpensive yet similarly convenient alternative to car ownership. This study focuses on the outcomes of the CanBikeCO program developed by the Colorado Energy Office (CEO), which provided e-bikes to low-income users in sites across Colorado. This is the first large-scale, longitudinal evaluation of how privately owned e-bikes are used, revealing energy, emissions, and behavior implications.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

EVI-X Updates and National Charging Assessment Report

With the support of DOE's Vehicle Technologies Office and the DOE/DOT Joint Office (JO), NREL has applied the EVI-X modeling suite to conduct a National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Needs Assessment. This report considers a 2030 scenario in which 30-42 million light-duty electric vehicles are on the road (including plug-in hybrids). We consider the needs of vehicles used for typical daily driving, drivers without access to residential charging, corridor charging supporting long-distance travel, and ride-hailing electrification. We find that a national network of 28 million charging ports (including public and private infrastructure) will be necessary in our mid adoption scenario. This result is framed as a conservative estimate as the assumed costs include charging equipment and installation but exclude the cost of grid upgrades and distributed energy resources.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Enabling a Sustainable Future: Zero-Emission Vehicles Cost Analysis to Inform Decarbonization Pathways

Despite being only 5% of vehicles on the road, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MHDVs) are the second largest contributor to transportation emissions (21%) and a major source of local air pollution disproportionally affecting disadvantaged communities. This talk summarizes a cost analysis for zero emissions vehicles (battery electric EVs and hydrogen fuel cell FCEVs) for all medium and heavy duty applications, ranging from large pick-up trucks, to delivery vans, buses, and heavy trucks. Results show that with continued improvements in vehicle and fuel technologies (in line with U.S. Department of Energy targets and vetted with industry), zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) can reach total-cost-of-driving parity with conventional diesel vehicles by 2035 for all medium- and heavy-duty (MD/HD) vehicle classes without incentives. Assuming economics drives adoption, ZEV sales could reach 42% of all MD/HD trucks by 2030, reflecting lower combined vehicle purchase and operating costs (using real-world payback periods). Two technological solutions - battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) - are viable in multiple market segments, offering alternative pathways for decarbonization: a) BEVs tend to become cost-competitive for smaller trucks before 2030 and for short-haul (<500-mile) heavy trucks before 2035. b) Hydrogen FCEVs tend to become cost-competitive for long-haul (>500-mile) heavy trucks by 2035. Results are very sensitive to technology improvement trajectories, adoption decision-making, and uncertain assumptions about future freight demand, logistics, and vehicle use explored in multiple scenarios.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

2024 Electric Vehicles at Scale Semiannual Stakeholder Meeting

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Electric Vehicles at Scale Lab Consortium (EVs@Scale Lab Consortium) is accelerating research to support the establishment of a secure and scalable national network of charging infrastructure. This network will be critical to support tens of millions of light-, medium-, and heavy-duty EVs on American roads by 2030. The EVs@Scale Lab Consortium brings together national laboratories and key stakeholders to conduct infrastructure research and development (R&D) that advances innovations in, and sets unified standards for, high-power and wireless charging. The effort will also develop technologies to integrate vehicle charging with the power grid, and develop cybersecurity measures to protect drivers, vehicles, equipment, and the grid. The first hybrid EVs@Scale Lab Consortium Semiannual Stakeholder Meeting was held at ANL on September 27-28, 2023, to identify research, development, and deployment needs to accelerate technology development for electric vehicles at scale and explore opportunities for collaboration across government, academia, and industry.

advanced charging and grid interface technologies↗

Projecting Electric Vehicle Electricity Demands and Charging Loads

After over a century of petroleum dominance, electric vehicles are rapidly disrupting the transportation energy landscape. At the same time, the electric power systems are undergoing profound changes as variable renewables replace dispatchable fossil generators. It is critically important to understand how transportation electrification will impact electricity demand, including changes in the load shapes that characterize the system, and the value of flexible electric vehicle charging to better balance electricity demand and supply. This talk focuses on methods to project electricity demand for EV charging with high spatiotemporal fidelity to enable electricity system modeling and analysis and summarizes results from recent NREL studies in this area.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Triple Effect Economics: How Do Electric Vehicles, Solar Photovoltaics, and Work-from-Home Transform Household Electricity Cost?

Solutions for deep decarbonization need to be affordable as well as sustainable to garner widespread adoption. The past two decades have seen the introduction of new technologies and paradigms such as electric vehicles (EVs), solar photovoltaics (PVs), and increased work-from-home (WFH), which impact a household's overall energy consumption and cost in different ways. However, much attention has not been paid to explore the joint impact these technologies have on a household's electricity cost burden. Leveraging the 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS), this study presents an integrated model to unravel the extent to which the bundled adoption of EV-PV and stay-at-home decisions impact the total electricity cost of households. National level RECS data revealed that, compared to the baseline (i.e., households that did not own any of these technologies), households that own EVs, PVs, and engage in WFH observed a 13.5% decline in their electricity bills, despite a 25% increase in electricity consumption. The model results indicated that bundled adoption of EVs-PVs reduces electricity costs more significantly for a household, compared to the increased costs imposed by more household members staying at home. This holistic assessment presents an opportunity for decision makers to contextualize the changing energy costs and design effective strategies to foster a sustainable and cost saving mechanism. Policies such as bundled incentivization to motivate co-adoption, education about energy-management strategies, and add-on subsidies to adopt energy-efficient appliances, will not only accelerate decarbonization but increase household financial savings.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Power Sharing-Based Framework for Allocating Automatic Generation Control in Distributed Energy Resources: Preprint

The recent proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the power network along with the retirement of conventional generators has made it challenging to regulate system frequency. In this paper, we present a centralized control framework to leverage the potential of DERs in the distribution network in provisioning secondary frequency control services to the grid. The proposed framework is based on network volt-watt sensitivity analysis and takes into account DER operational and network-imposed constraints to allocate the automatic generation control (AGC) request among the aggregated units. The proposed framework was implemented on the IEEE 8500-node test feeder and results were validated against a standard linear programming-based scheme. Numerical results indicate that the proposed framework can successfully utilize the available power production headroom of the network to meet the AGC request while maintaining nodal voltages within acceptable limits.

distributed energy resources↗

National Park Service: Spotlight on Partnerships

This presentation covers the National Park Service net zero vision and related technical analysis. The NPS/NREL/FEMP partnership include: (1) Partnership spanning more than a decade; (2) Technical support encompasses renewable energy analysis, audit support, fleet technical analysis, resilience assessments, and more.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Physical Safety and Security at Electric Vehicle Charging Sites

This help sheet provides an overview of physical safety and security design elements for public EV charging stations and general best practices that can be considered for the safety and comfort of charging station customers.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

EVI-LOCATE: One Stop Solution for Estimating Cost of Installing EV Charging Stations

EVI-LOCATE (Electric Vehicle Infrastructure-Locally Optimized Cost Assessment Tool and Estimator) is a site assessment tool to estimate costs to install EV charging stations. EVI-LOCATE enables users to generate site-specific, user-specific, and location-specific EV charging station installation designs and cost estimates. The tool integrates National Electrical Code, deep-learning pixel classification algorithm, and component-level costs to estimate the costs.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Sustainable Public Transport: Providing Responsive, On-Demand Service with Clean Energy

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) uses the Mobility Energy Productivity (MEP) as a metric and a lens to guide applied research into high performance public mobility. In the current initiative to abate global warming, the US needs not only zero-emission vehicles in the transit fleet (such as buses and shuttles) but also time- and cost-effective services to connect people with goods, services and employment toward a high-quality of life. Our current transportation system is overly dependent on personally-owned automobiles for high quality mobility, with public modes being less viable in many areas. Simply electrifying the drivetrains of existing public transit modes will fail to improve the quality of mobility for those that do not have access to private automobiles. The slow rebound by transit from the pandemic reveals the need to reinvent public transit service. Using the MEP lens, NREL researchers have tracked various novel developments in the public mobility space, with the confluence of shared, on-demand transit (ODT) services using light duty vehicles emerging as a key enabler of high-efficiency public mobility. Deployments such as those in Arlington, TX, Dallas, TX, Fort Erie, ON, and Innisfil, ON showcase the use of fleets of light-duty vehicles as the basis for community circulation and first/last mile to intra-regional transit. ODT services have demonstrated improvements in being more time efficient for riders, more energy efficient in operation (even before the introduction of fully electric vehicles), as well as being cost effective. It appears that aspects of the long-awaited promise of Personal Rapid Transit from the 1970s are beginning to be realized through ODT deployments, leveraging transportation network company (TNC) logistics, popularized by Uber and Lyft, but applied to public mobility. Currently, manually driven ODT operations are already cost competitive with traditional transit systems on a cost per ride basis, and full automation promises to reduce costs by 50% while providing additional safety and verified customer service. Connecting these ODT systems with efficient and effective intra-regional backbone transit service is the next step, with transit agencies like DART providing early results. This discussion will walk through the evidence for this postulated outcome and show results from a series of case-studies.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Fast Charging Infrastructure for Electrifying Road Trips to and from National Parks in the Western United States

This study investigated the fast-charging infrastructure needed by 2030 to enable seamless electrified road trips to and from national parks and monuments in seven western states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. It also estimated impacts to the electric grid. The research team investigated how on-route charging infrastructure projections change with different parameters or assumptions, as do related charging loads and grid impacts. NREL conducted the study in partnership with utility service provider PacifiCorp and Utah State University as part of the Western Smart Regional EV Adoption and Infrastructure at Scale project.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

MUTCD 11th Edition - What's New in Signage for Electric Vehicle Charging and Parking

This handout summarizes key changes to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways (MUTCD) with respect to signage for electric vehicle (EV) charging and parking. The final rule for the 11th edition of the MUTCD was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 19, 2023, and became effective Jan. 18, 2024. The previous edition was issued in 2009. Going forward, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law requires updates every four years. Visit the MUTCD 11th Edition for full details.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Workshop: Advanced Metering for Decarbonization: Electric Vehicles and 24/7 Carbon-Free Electricity

The purpose of this workshop is to learn more about advanced metering best practices for meeting the goals of EO 14057. This will be a 2-part session, first part to include presentations on the FEMP best practice work related to metering: 1) Electric Vehicles (EVs) and EV charging station electricity use. 2) Integrating data sources to calculate hourly carbon pollution-free electricity (CFE). Second part will facilitate small group discussions with a problem-solving activity.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Vehicle and Mobility Technologies 2024 Annual Impact Report

Research and development at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory supports the U.S. Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office in advancing efficient and sustainable transportation technologies that will improve energy efficiency, fuel economy, and mobility energy productivity, and will enable America to achieve a resilient, secure, clean, and affordable transportation future.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Example Alternative Compliance Annual Report: EPAct State and Alternative Fuel Provider Fleet Program User Guide

The U.S. Department of Energy developed an electronic reporting spreadsheet to facilitate fleets' preparation of a complete Alternative Compliance (AC) annual report. All fleets that participate in AC are encouraged to use the spreadsheet. The following examples include one AC annual report that uses the spreadsheet and one AC annual report that does not use the spreadsheet. Both examples include all components that must be included in a fleet's AC annual report. For further instructions on how to use the reporting spreadsheet, review the Alternative Compliance Guidance Document.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Guidance on EPAct section 707 Emergency Repair and Restoration Vehicle Exclusions: EPAct State and Alternative Fuel Provider Fleet Program Guidance Document

Section 707 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) amended section 301(9)(E) of EPAct 1992 by adding to the list of vehicles excluded from the definition of "fleet" a new subcategory of emergency motor vehicles, i.e., "vehicles directly used in the emergency repair of transmission lines and in the restoration of electricity service following power outages, as determined by the Secretary." Like other excluded vehicles, these light-duty vehicles (LDVs) do not count (1) when determining whether a fleet is covered under the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) State and Alternative Fuel Provider Fleet Program (Program), and (2) for fleets that are covered under the Program, when calculating annual alternative fuel vehicle (AFV)-acquisition requirements. If AFV models of excluded vehicles are acquired, however, a fleet may count them toward their acquisition requirement by including them in the calculation of the number of AFVs acquired. Exclusion Process.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗

Navigating the Compliance Reporting Tool: EPAct State and Alternative Provider Fleet Program User Guide

State government and alternative fuel provider fleets covered under the State and Alternative Fuel Provider Fleet Program (Program) established pursuant to the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct) may use the Compliance Reporting Tool to track and report on several compliance activities. These activities include, but are not limited to, completing Standard Compliance annual reports, Alternative Compliance notices of intent, and exemption requests. Covered fleets can access the Compliance Tool through the Program's website at https://epact.energy.gov/users/sign_in. Covered fleet point of contacts should bookmark the Compliance Reporting Tool for future access. This user guide addresses general tool navigation, including: 1) Logging in to the Tool, 2) Managing Your Point of Contact and Account Information, 3) Managing Fleet Contact Information, 4) Adding New Fleets to Your Account, 5) Reporting for Entities With Multiple Fleets, and 6) Viewing Credit Trades.

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS,ENERGY PLANNING, POLIC↗