Energy Systems Integration Newsletter: April 2022

In this edition, NREL analysis shows Mexico's potential as a clean energy powerhouse, NREL's Power Electronic Grid Interface helps de-risk big changes in grid infrastructure, the final report from NREL's Storage Futures Study, and more.

NREL Analysis Demonstrates Mexico's Potential To Become a Clean Energy Powerhouse

In early April, NREL released an in-depth report on the potential for clean energy development in Mexico. Mexico is replete with solar and wind resources and has remaining untapped potential in geothermal and hydropower. NREL's Mexico Clean Energy Report concludes that, considering this potential and the low cost of renewable energy generation, Mexico has a considerable opportunity.

"Mexico can be a clean energy powerhouse," said NREL Laboratory Director Martin Keller, "and a vital part of maintaining North America's competitive edge around the world. Realizing this potential will require energy policies that facilitate private investment and support our joint efforts on clean energy, climate, and supply chains."

Learn more about the report and the critical role that Mexico can play as a clean energy leader.

NREL Launches Platform To Demonstrate Power Electronics on the Grid

Power electronics are used throughout the grid to convert and control electricity, including electricity from distributed energy resources (DER) such as wind, solar, and electric vehicles. As renewables increase in number, power electronics can support different applications on the grid, potentially leading to new grid architectures altogether.

NREL has begun demonstrations on its Power Electronics Grid Interface (PEGI) platform, which helps users prototype devices and controls and validate them up to megawatt-scale power.

Read the news story NREL Builds Out National Capability To Derisk Big Changes in Grid Infrastructure.

Final Report From NREL's Storage Futures Study Shows Critical Value of Energy Storage

Energy storage will likely be a critical part of a flexible, resilient, low-carbon future grid, NREL's Storage Futures Study concludes in the final summary report.

The multiyear study launched in 2020 with support from the Department of Energy as part of the Energy Storage Grand Challenge—a program to accelerate the development, commercialization, and utilization of next-generation energy storage technologies.

Each phase of the Storage Futures Study indicated significant deployment potential for energy storage in the coming decades—increasing to five times today's capacity by 2050—and it will likely play an integral role in determining the future grid mix.

Read the news story Storage Futures Study: Key Learnings for the Coming Decades.

Q&A With Parthiv Kurup: A Practical Captain To Helm the Clean Energy Transition

Growing up in India, Parthiv Kurup saw regular blackouts. Some lasted hours; others darkened everything for days. Those dark spells sparked an epiphany for Kurup. Ever practical, he decided to join the energy sector—and change it. Though he started in natural gas, he switched to renewables when he realized their future economic value would surpass fossil fuels. Now, as a cost and systems analyst at NREL, Kurup studies the economic viability of renewable technologies.

In a recent interview, Kurup, who joined NREL 7 years ago, shared how he went from blackouts, to company founder, to expert in clean energy technology and manufacturing. Read the full interview.

NREL's Cyber Range Offers Eagle-Eye View of Federal Energy Asset Security

To help federal energy managers assess, monitor, and manage cybersecurity, NREL's Distributed Energy Resource Cybersecurity Framework (DER-CF) offers a comprehensive, web-based assessment tool focused on cyber governance or policies, technical management, and physical security. NREL and the Federal Energy Management Program are now elevating the DER-CF to a new plane by integrating the tool with NREL's cyber range, allowing for interactive visualizations of current and future cybersecurity scenarios for each site.

Integrating DER-CF data with the cyber range will be transformative, enabling federal decision makers to emulate sitewide energy systems for a more comprehensive picture of DER-related cybersecurity issues and strategies. Read NREL's Cyber Range Offers Eagle-Eye View of Federal Energy Asset Security to learn more.

Electric Vehicle Manufacturers Mobilize Behind Charging Cybersecurity at NREL

As more electric vehicles (EVs) enter the market, vehicle cybersecurity will be critical for building trust. In April, vehicle industry leaders convened in the laboratories of NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility to evaluate a more cybersecure connection between EVs and their charging stations. The event was the first of its kind to implement the method called public key infrastructure to authenticate vehicles and chargers along with encrypting message traffic.

Read the full story on this industry collaboration.

The Building Blocks of Power Sector Security for Utilities Across the Globe

For small and under-resourced utilities, the impact of a cyberattack can be especially disruptive. To help utilities better prepare for such events—and to understand what a full cybersecurity program looks like—NREL partnered with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop the Power Sector Cybersecurity Building Blocks, an accessible framework designed to aid a variety of stakeholders in building balanced cybersecurity programs to secure the electric grid.

Learn more by reading the full article, and tune in for the upcoming Caribbean Energy Sector Cybersecurity Forum, which will be held virtually May 10–11. The forum will feature a virtual booth for the NREL-USAID partnership and an NREL-hosted panel.

Upcoming Webinar Will Explain Best Practices for DER Hosting Capacity Analysis

DERs—such as rooftop solar arrays, energy storage, and electric vehicles—are arriving on the grid in fast-growing numbers; however, it is not always clear how much additional DER capacity a community's grid can accommodate.

NREL and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council have published best practices around validating hosting capacity data so that utilities, regulators, developers, and customers know the true available capacity. These best practices help prevent common errors and later data cleanup that afflict current hosting capacity analyses. NREL will host a webinar about the best practices on May 10.

Read more in NREL and IREC Identify Best Practices for Validating Hosting Capacity Analyses.

Video: We Need Resilient Energy Systems

The risk of power outages is escalating as the aging infrastructure of the grid becomes vulnerable to record-breaking natural disasters, cyberattacks, and other disruptions. Engineers who study energy resilience identify those vulnerabilities and find strategies for securing and improving our energy systems. For the last 15 years, NREL has worked with communities to prevent power disruptions from happening, quickly restore electricity if an outage does occur, and rebuild from disasters.

Learn more about NREL's Energy Security and Resilience Research.

Publications Roundup

A Primer on the Unintentional Islanding Protection Requirement in IEEE Std 1547-2018

This NREL technical report address the unintentional islanding protection requirement in the widely referenced Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) standard 1547-2018. An island is a condition in which DERs continue to power a portion of the power system when it is isolated from the utility source. If unplanned, islanding could become harmful to connected equipment because the DERs might not be designed to maintain frequency and voltage without the utility source. This report goes through proper device integration to reduce unintentional islanding by providing summaries of device testing and certification, field evaluations and verifications, common concerns, and a guide to assessing the risk of unintentional islanding.

Real-World Synchronous Oscillation Events in Power Grids with High Penetrations of Inverter-Based Resources

This paper from NREL researchers published in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems presents a survey of real-world subsynchronous oscillation events associated with inverter-based resources during the past decade. The focus is on those oscillations in the subsynchronous frequency range known to be influenced by power grid characteristics, e.g., series compensation or low system strength. A brief overview of the historical events is presented, followed by detailed descriptions of a series of events. The paper also examines causation mechanisms and proposes future research directions to meet grid needs worldwide.

From Event Data to Wind Power Plant DQ Admittance and Stability Risk Assessment

Published in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, this paper from NREL researchers presents a dynamic event data-based stability risk assessment method for power grids with high penetrations of inverter-based resources. Two critical technologies are employed in this research, including time-domain and frequency-domain data fitting and voltage and current signal derivation. The paper also demonstrates the technical feasibility of the proposed risk assessment approach.