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At least 1,657 records · Page 92

Cybersecurity for Clean Energy Resources [Slides]

This presentation provides motivation for research in clean energy cybersecurity and highlights INL projects and capabilities to address clean energy cybersecurity needs. The projects are broken down by device level, plant level, utility level, regulation level, and implementation. This introduction to INL capabilities creates opportunity for further conversations around how cohort members can improve their own organizational security postures.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Grid Resilience Plans: State Requirements, Utility Practices, and Utility Plan Template

As of June 2024, 14 states and one city require jurisdictional electric utilities to file resilience plans. Drawing on these requirements and filed plans, this report offers a standard template that states and utilities can consider to improve utility filings for grid resilience plans, either as part of a distribution system plan or as a separate filing. Key elements include a vulnerability assessment, description of proposed resilience programs, and projected costs and rate impacts. While many of these requirements and plans focus on extreme weather hazards, the template also can be used to address additional threats, including cyber and physical attacks and seismic events.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Hourly dynamic line ratings for existing transmission across the contiguous United States (preliminary results) [Slides]

The thermal rating of a transmission line depends on the rate at which heat generated by current flow through the line can be dissipated into the environment by convective and radiative cooling, keeping the conductor below a maximum operating temperature. Static or seasonal line ratings assume nearly-worst-case weather conditions (high ambient air temperature, high solar irradiance, and low wind speed), resulting in a low risk of "overrating" a line (i.e., allowing more current to flow than the line is designed for) but a high fraction of time when the line is "underrated" (i.e., able to flow more current while staying below the maximum temperature). Dynamic transmission line ratings (DLR) use real-time measurements of weather conditions, line sag, or line temperature to determine the thermal rating of transmission lines at hourly or higher time resolution, allowing for increased ratings during some (cold, windy, and/or dark) periods and correcting for overrating during other (hot, calm, and/or sunny) periods. Many studies have explored the benefits of DLR, but typically for small collections of transmission lines under a limited sample of weather conditions, leaving open the question of how widely applicable the benefits of DLR might be over diverse geographies and weather conditions. Here, we combine geospatial data on tens of thousands of transmission line routes across the contiguous United States with high-resolution hourly historical weather data for 2007-2013 to estimate the impact of DLR and other weather-adjusted rating systems. We compare static and dynamic line ratings to intermediate ratings adjusted by ambient temperature, day/night irradiance, clear-sky irradiance, and/or measured irradiance, illustrating the benefits of incorporating progressively more detailed weather data into the calculated line ratings. Moving from nighttime-adjusted ratings to clear-sky-adjusted ratings provides more benefit than moving from clear-sky-adjusted ratings to measured-irradiance-adjusted ratings. Depending on the assumed static windspeed for irradiance-adjusted-ratings, DLR either corrects for overrated hours or provides substantially increased ratings in the majority of hours on the majority of lines.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Evidence of Completion of Milestone 3: Experimental Testbed

Construction and deployment of the experimental testbed encountered scheduling delays, and completion was subsequently further delayed by curtailment of LANL operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Between March and October, LANL was in a state of “Limited Operations” such that only certain “mission-critical” work was performed with approximately 25% on-site staffing. In spite of this, much of the lab space preparation was executed and the five initial model house” units were constructed and installed during this period. Still, the pace of construction was impacted by difficulty in coordinating personnel and minimizing contact between workers. Currently, LANL is in the mode of “Normal Operations with Maximum Telework,” which continues to limit the availability of on-site personnel. Nevertheless, Milestone 3 is now complete. This document describes the experiment as it is deployed and provides status for each task for this milestone.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Evidence of Completion of Milestone 4: Simulation Testbed Validated with Experimental Data

Milestone 4 is given in the SOPO as being due in quarter 5 (ending 9/11/2020) and is described thus: Milestone 4: Enhanced Simulation Testbed Validated with Experimental Data (UM, Mathieu) Simulation testbed validated with data obtained from experimental testbed, specifically, nonlinear load behaviors and communication network issues observed in the experimental testbed will be modeled in the simulation testbed. The simulation testbed should accurately capture TCL real and reactive power consumption (including during extreme events associated with nonlinear behaviors and communication network failures) to within 5% RMSE error with respect to data obtained from the experimental testbed.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

Regulatory and Technical Challenges and Barriers to Adoption of Distributed Wind Energy in Agricultural Settings

Distributed wind (DW) energy development can benefit agricultural landowners through the possibility of improved resilience of electrical service from onsite generation and associated economic benefits. DW development currently faces technical and regulatory challenges related to interconnection of projects with distribution or transmission equipment on the main electrical grid. A review was conducted of barriers to adoption for agricultural DW projects and potential roles of various stakeholders in addressing them. One major barrier is that the unique characteristics of wind energy generation such as its variability and intermittency, may require upgrades for the whole power line, which can lead to prohibitive cost burdens on individual interconnection customers. Another barrier is compliance with federal, state, or utility-level regulations that require technology-agnostic, industry-standard equipment that is often not technically realistic for DW projects. DW developers, grid infrastructure owner-operators, regulators, and standards publishers can work together to address these challenges and facilitate DW development.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Regional Energy Hardware Innovation Accelerator

E4 Carolinas, Inc., along with the Joules Accelerator and Savannah River National Laboratory received a grant from the DOE Office of Technology Commercialization as part of its Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) program to develop a Regional Energy Hardware Innovation Accelerator. The project objective was to create a regional energy hardware cluster innovation and accelerator ecosystem (Accelerator) to enhance commercialization opportunities for U.S. energy startups (Ventures) and Corporate Ventures (a new venture originating within an established company).

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Integration of Open-Source URBANopt and Dragonfly Energy Modeling Capabilities into Practitioner Workflows for District-Scale Planning and Design

High-performance districts and communities offer opportunities for reducing energy use, emissions, and costs, and can be instrumental in helping cities achieve their climate goals. The design of such communities requires identification of opportunities early on and their re-evaluation throughout the planning process. There is a need for energy modeling tools that connect 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD) platforms to simulation engines, enabling detailed energy analysis of districts within the workflows and tools used by practitioners. This paper introduces the Dragonfly and URBANoptTM combined toolset that supports the creation of urban models from a range of geometry formats typically used by designers and planners, and provides an integrated pathway to simulate district-scale energy systems. The toolset is piloted by a global architecture and master planning firm to evaluate several key urban-scale technical questions for the design of a district in Chicago. The findings indicate that, while energy savings can be achieved through traditional architectural studies and enhancements to individual building efficiency, the modeling toolset helps identify additional savings and insights that can be achieved when considering district-scale energy systems. Finally, this study demonstrates how the Dragonfly/URBANopt toolset can integrate with master planning workflows, thereby enabling an iterative performance-based design process.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

On the computational noise of finite-difference schemes used in ocean models

Different distributions of variables over the horizontal array of grid points in an ocean circulation model are investigated, using the shallow water equations as a guide in the choice of finite-difference schemes for use in ocean modeling. It is shown that the scheme with diffusive dissipation, in which the horizontal velocity is carried at the center and the height field is carried at each corner of a rectangular grid, successively suppresses numerical noise in a coarse (greater than 100 km) grid ocean model. For resolutions smaller than 50 km, it is shown that the scheme in which zonal velocity is carried at points to the east and west of the point of a rectangular grid where the height is carried, with meridional velocity carried to the north and south of the height point, can be free of noise for the gravest mode.

Batteen, M. L.↗

Influence of the Tibetian Plateau on cumulative and diurnal changes of weather and climate in summer

An investigation of the dynamic and thermodynamic influences of the Tibetian Plateau on the monsoon circulation in southeastern Asia and China is reported. A five-day primitive equation numerical model was used to simulate the influences of the high mountains in the 0-180 deg E and 25-55 deg N region on a typical July day. The equations predicted horizontal motion, heat, the water vapor mixing ratio, and surface pressure. Consideration was given to solar and longwave radiation and the release of latent heat by deep cumulus clouds. A net warming over the Plateau as opposed to the surrounding areas was found to lead to vertical air ascent and the establishment of strong summer monsoon circulation to the south. It is noted that the grid was too coarse to adequately describe the distribution of precipitation on the steep mountains.

Kuo, H. L.↗

Structure of turbulence in the presence of uniform shear

The structure of the vorticity field in homogeneous turbulent shear flow is analyzed using a database generated by direct numerical solution of the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations with up to 128x128x128 grid points. For two Reynolds numbers, the probability distribution of the inclination angle of the vorticity vectors, two-point correlations of the velocity and vorticity fields, and the instantaneous vorticity vectors and vortex lines in three-dimensional space were examined. It is shown that homogeneous turbulent shear flow contains a large number of horseshoe vortices. These vortices are most often found in planes inclined at 45 deg to the flow direction and are formed from the roll-up of sheets of transverse vorticity. These findings and similar results obtained in turbulent channel flow, lead to the conclusion that hairpin vortices are the characteristic vortical structures in all turbulent shear flows.

Moin, P.↗

Navier-Stokes calculations using Cartesian grids. I - Laminar flows

A finite-volume formulation for the Navier-Stokes equations using Cartesian grids is used to study flows past airfoils. In addition to the solution of the complete equations, solutions for two simplified versions of the governing equations were obtained and compared with those using body-fitted grids. Results are presented for two airfoil sections, NACA 0012 and RAE 2822, for a range of Mach numbers, angles of attack, and Reynolds numbers. It is shown that the results are highly dependent on the smoothness of the surface grid. Without such smoothness, the skin friction and pressure converge to nonuniform distributions. On the other hand, when surface cells with smoothly varying areas are used, the results compared favorably with calculations employing body-fitted grids.

Frymier, Paul D., Jr.↗

Analysis of lightning field changes produced by Florida thunderstorms

A new method is introduced for inferring the charges deposited in a lightning flash. Lightning-caused field changes (delta E's) are described by a more general volume charge distribution than is defined on a large cartesian grid system centered above the measuring networks. It is shown that a linear system of equations can be used to relate delta E's at the ground to the values of charge on this grid. It is possible to apply more general physical constraints to the charge solutions, and it is possible to access the information content of the delta E data. Computer-simulated delta E inversions show that the location and symmetry of the charge retrievals are usually consistent with the known test sources.

Koshak, William John↗

The design and implementation of a parallel unstructured Euler solver using software primitives

This paper is concerned with the implementation of a 3D unstructured-grid Euler-solver on massively parallel distributed-memory computer architectures. The goal is to minimize solution time by achieving high computational rates with a numerically efficient algorithm. An unstructured multigrid algorithm with an edge-based data-structure has been adopted, and a number of optimizations have been devised and implemented in order to accelerate the parallel computational rates. The implementation is carried out by creating a set of software tools, which ease the implementation of computational problems on parallel architecture machines by relieving the user of the low-level machine specific issues. The quantitative effect of the various optimizations are demonstrated, and we show that the combined effect of these optimizations leads to roughly a factor of three performance improvement. The overall solution efficiency is compared with that obtained on the CRAY-YMP vector supercomputer.

Das, R.↗

Numerical modeling of the interstellar medium in galactic disks

We have been developing detailed hydrodynamic models of the global interstellar medium in the hope of understanding the mass and volume occupied by various phases, as well as their structure and kinematics. In our model, the gas is modeled by one fluid while representative Pop 1 stars are modeled by a second fluid. The two fluids are coupled in that the gas forms into stars at a rate given by a Schmidt law while stellar mass loss returns matter into the gas phase (on a time scale of 100 Myr). Also, the stars heat the gas through stellar winds and the gas cools through optically thin radiation. The time behavior of these two fluids is studied in two spatial dimensions with the Eulerian finite difference numerical hydrodynamic code Zen. The two spatial dimensions are along the plane of a disk (x, total length of 2 kpc) and perpendicular to the disk (z, total height of +/- 15 kpc) and a galactic gravitational field in the z direction, typical of that at the solar circle, is imposed upon the simulation; self-gravity and rotation are absent. For the boundary conditions, outflow is permitted at the top and bottom of the grid (z = +/- 15 kpc) while periodic boundary conditions are imposed upon left and right sides of the grid. As initial conditions, we assumed a gaseous distribution like that seen for the H1 by earlier researchers, although the results are insensitive to the initial conditions. We have run simulations in which the heating due to stars, parameterized as a stellar wind velocity, a, is varied from low (a = 150 km/s), to intermediate (a = 300 km/s), to high (a = 600 km/s). Since the intermediate case is roughly equivalent to the Galactic energy injection rate from supernovae, this summary will concentrate on results from this simulation.

Rosen, A.↗

Time-dependent grid adaptation for meshes of triangles and tetrahedra

This paper presents in viewgraph form a method of optimizing grid generation for unsteady CFD flow calculations that distributes the numerical error evenly throughout the mesh. Adaptive meshing is used to locally enrich in regions of relatively large errors and to locally coarsen in regions of relatively small errors. The enrichment/coarsening procedures are robust for isotropic cells; however, enrichment of high aspect ratio cells may fail near boundary surfaces with relatively large curvature. The enrichment indicator worked well for the cases shown, but in general requires user supervision for a more efficient solution.

Russ D Rausch↗

Fractal characteristics of ozonometric network

The fractal (correlation) dimensions are calculated which characterize the distribution of stations in the ground-based total ozone measuring network and the distribution of nodes in a latitude-longitude grid. The dimension of the ground-based ozonometric network equals 1.67 +/- 0.1 with an appropriate scaling in the 60 to 400 km range. For the latitude-longitude grid two scaling regimes are revealed. One regime, with the dimension somewhat greater than one, is peculiar to smaller scales and limited from a larger scale by the latitudinal resolution of the grid. Another scaling regime, with the dimension equal 1.84, ranges up to 15,000 km scale. The fact that the dimension of a measuring network is less than two possesses problems in observing sparse phenomena. This has to have important consequences for ozone statistics.

Gruzdev, Alexander N.↗

Evaluation of numerical schemes for the analysis of sound generation by blade-gust interaction

In this investigation three different numerical algorithms have been utilized to compute the flow about a flat plate in the presence of a transverse gust described by a sinusoidal disturbance. The three schemes include the MacCormack explicit finite difference scheme which is second order accurate in both time and space, the Gottlieb and Turkel modification of MacCormack's scheme which is fourth order accurate in space and second order accurate in time, (referred to as the 2-4 scheme), and a two step scheme developed by Bayliss et al. which has second order temporal accuracy and sixth order spatial accuracy (a 2-6 scheme). The flow field results are obtained with these schemes by using the same code with the only difference being the implementation of the respective solution algorithms. The problem is set up so that the sinusoidal disturbance is imposed at the surface of the flat plate as a surface boundary condition. Thus the problem is treated as scattering problem. The computed results include the time average of the acoustic pressure squared along grid lines five points away from the boundaries; distribution throughout the computational domain is monitored at various times. The numerical results are compared with an exact solution obtained by Atassi, Dusey, and Davis.

Scott, J. N.↗