Energy Systems Integration Newsletter: December 2021

In this edition, NREL acquires a new high-performance computing system, NREL researcher named to Forbes' "30 Under 30: Energy" list, improving solar adoption in underserved communities, and more.

NREL Acquires Next-Generation High-Performance Computing System

NREL has selected Hewlett Packard Enterprise to build its third-generation, high-performance computing system, called Kestrel, which will have approximately 44 petaflops of computing power. Kestrel's mission will be to rapidly advance the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) research and development efforts to deliver transformative energy solutions to the entire United States. Installation of the new system will begin in NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility in fall 2022.

NREL Researcher Named in Forbes 30 Under 30 List

On December 1, NREL energy and artificial intelligence researcher Sakshi Mishra was named to the North America Forbes "30 Under 30 2022: Energy" list. Forbes annually recognizes groups of 30 young professionals in areas such as health care, media, and science. Nominated by her mentor and former manager Kate Anderson, Energy Systems Integration directorate chief of staff, Sakshi is a contributing team member for REopt Lite and the Intelligent Campus project.

Knock Knock, It's the Solar Influencer Next Door

Solar installations in disadvantaged communities do not come from phone calls or emails from solar companies. They come from referrals by friends nearby, according to new NREL research on California income-qualified solar programs. Some communities face more barriers to installing rooftop solar systems than others, including cash constraints, not owning their homes, and language barriers. As part of the multiyear Solar Energy Evolution and Diffusion Studies (SEEDS) funded by the DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office, recent findings can help identify successful solar uptake strategies for communities that have been left out of the solar industry.

Read more about solar adoption in underserved communities and subscribe to news about NREL's SEEDS work.

National Laboratories Take Inclusive Step for Researchers To Claim Work From All Stages of Their Careers

NREL is joining the 16 other DOE national laboratories and many publishers, journals, and other scientific publishing organizations in a partnership to support name-change requests from researchers on past published papers. The effort, coordinated by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is intended to allow researchers of all genders, and transgender researchers specifically, to rightfully claim ownership of past work. Through this process, researchers can be known in their respective fields primarily through their merits as published authors. The national laboratories will facilitate requests for name changes from researchers for any reason, including religious, marital, or other purposes.

This Year's Top News Stories and Downloaded Publications

News Stories

Thank you for making this newsletter your go-to source for the latest news in energy systems integration (ESI) research. A lot has happened this year, so we rounded up our top stories from 2021 in one can't-miss list:

Publications

The ESI team at NREL continued its track record of publishing groundbreaking and impactful research, and this year the ESI portfolio expanded to represent the work of NREL's energy analysis researchers. With this expansion, NREL's ESI publications logged more than 330,000 downloads during the fiscal year (FY). See our list of the top 10 downloaded publications from FY 2021:

Resilient and Ready: NREL Helps Large Federal Campuses Examine Their Energy and Water Posture

Resilience planning helps organizations identify opportunities, prioritize funding, and develop a pipeline of projects to strengthen their operations against a range of hazards and threats. To aid federal agencies in resilience planning, NREL researchers use the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Technical Resilience Navigator—a tool that leads users through a series of modules to build stakeholder engagement, perform an organizational assessment, and develop an action plan.

New Report Highlights 2021 Accomplishments of NREL State, Local, and Tribal Program

NREL's State, Local, and Tribal (SLT) Program team is proud to share a new Summary and Impact Report highlighting some of the key projects, impacts, and accomplishments for fiscal year 2021. Despite another challenging year for the world, The SLT team continued to deliver tools, data, analysis, technical assistance, and training to support communities as they navigate clean energy projects.

Place-based work has been at the heart of the SLT Program for decades, creating a legacy of community engagement work. In the words of one team member, the program is "turning energy research into energy action, one community at a time." The report highlights the work, research, and staff behind the SLT Program, offering a fresh perspective on the impact and importance of community-led and equitable energy transitions. Read more on the SLT Conduit blog.

NREL Annual Holiday Message

As we celebrate the holiday season, we acknowledge that 2021 has required a different kind of energy. This year has not been easy, but it has allowed us to readjust and to decide what's important and what matters most—the people in our lives, the health of our community, and a clean energy future for the world. Please watch this special holiday message from NREL.

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Publications Roundup

ARIES Research Plan

DOE and NREL have been building an energy systems research environment like no other: the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) research platform. To describe the purpose of ARIES and its expanding capabilities, NREL has published the ARIES Research Plan. The plan takes a high-level look at ARIES research areas of energy storage, power electronics, hybrid energy systems, future energy infrastructure, and cybersecurity, and each area's challenges, opportunities, and proposed research capabilities. Rather than a complete picture of ARIES capabilities, the plan sketches a research agenda that is instructing the ARIES build-out.

Microgrid's Role in Enhancing the Security and Flexibility of City Energy Systems

A new book Flexible Resources for Smart Cities from Springer includes a chapter by NREL authors on current and potential roles for microgrids to provide resilience, reliability, and flexibility in adopting clean energy. The chapter first summarizes how microgrids are technically able to provide such benefits and how future capabilities could benefit smart cities. The authors then present a holistic study of microgrid resilience, along with strategies for addressing possible vulnerabilities. Finally, the authors review three real microgrid systems: a sports arena/community shelter in Ontario, a Marine Corps air station base, and a Brooklyn microgrid that employs peer-to-peer energy sales.

Comparing the OpenSolar Remote Shading Analysis Tool to On-Site Shading Measurements

NREL estimates customer acquisition to be the highest contributor to total soft costs in residential solar installations, accounting for up to $0.67/W (including permitting, inspection, and interconnection costs). Under the NREL Commercialization Assistance Program, an NREL fact sheet explains how researchers evaluated the statistical equivalence between solar access values (SAVs) calculated by the company OpenSolar, using their remote analysis software and SAVs measured by NREL on-site. Using only an address, OpenSolar creates an articulated 3D model of a property and can simulate shading for any day and time of the year. The 81 estimated SAVs provided by OpenSolar were found to be statistically equivalent to the measurements taken on-site by NREL with a tolerance of less than ±3 SAVs. NREL's Commercialization Assistance Program provides early-stage assistance to help startup companies cross technological barriers to commercialization while encouraging private-sector investment.