Energy Systems Integration Newsletter: August 2022

In this edition, a landmark study shows what is needed to achieve 100% clean electricity in the United States by 2035, NREL and Toyota partner on megawatt-scale hydrogen fuel cell systems, a new video explains everything you need to know about inverters, and more.

Exploring the Big Challenge Ahead: Insights on the Path to a Net-Zero Power Sector by 2035

What would it take to decarbonize the U.S. power sector by 2035? A new landmark study by NREL examines the types of clean energy technologies and the scale and pace of deployment needed to achieve 100% clean electricity, or a net-zero power grid, in the United States by 2035. This would be a major stepping stone to economy-wide decarbonization by 2050. Overall, NREL finds multiple pathways to 100% clean electricity by 2035 that would produce significant benefits exceeding the costs. The exact technology mix and costs will be determined by research and development, manufacturing, and infrastructure investment decisions during the next decade.

Read more insights on the path to a net-zero power sector by 2035.

New Research Collaboration To Advance Megawatt-Scale Hydrogen Fuel Cell Systems

As part of a 3-year partnership project, NREL and Toyota Motor North America (Toyota) will collaborate to build, install, and evaluate a 1-megawatt, proton exchange membrane fuel cell power generation system at NREL's Flatirons Campus. The fuel cell generator is part of the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) megawatt-scale hydrogen system being designed and commissioned at the campus. The system provides a platform to demonstrate direct renewable hydrogen production, energy storage, power production, and grid integration at the megawatt scale.

Learn more about NREL and Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell partnership.

Meet the Inverter: The Key to Clean Energy

Inverters might not be the first technology that comes to mind when renewable energy is mentioned, but they are definitely one of the most important. A new video from NREL explains how inverters are essential for any renewable energy transition, and especially for reaching 100% renewable power systems.

"The inverter is a power electronic device that changes electricity from direct current to alternating current. But with the increase in renewable energy, inverters inherit much greater responsibility. They are the link between renewable energy resources and the power grid, becoming stewards of stability and the conductors of overall coordination. For this reason, an NREL-led consortium is developing the controls, strategies, and operating principles for inverters to support a clean and resilient energy system everywhere."

Learn about the Universal Interoperability for Grid-Forming Inverters consortium—a widely collaborative effort to define the role of inverters in energy systems.

Q&A With Danish Saleem: Campaigning for Common Ground in Cybersecurity

In July 2022, senior cybersecurity researcher Danish Saleem hosted a workshop that convened leadership from the U.S. Department of Energy, principal cybersecurity researchers, and diverse energy sector stakeholders to discuss the state of energy system cybersecurity, its present challenges, and potential solutions. In this interview, Saleem talks about the importance of consensus building in securing renewable energy technologies, how he unintentionally entered the field of cybersecurity, and his experience of moving to the U.S. from Pakistan.

Read our Q&A with Danish Saleem.

New NREL Data Set Shows the Grid Value of Building Flexibility

Buildings, both commercial and residential, account for almost three-fourths of electricity use in the United States. In newly published research, NREL researchers ran hundreds of millions of simulations to gauge the contribution buildings make to gross grid value and created a publicly available data set for others to use.

Read more about this first-of-its-kind effort to estimate the gross value of generic building flexibility in future power systems.

NREL Releases Comprehensive Databases of Local Ordinances for Siting Wind, Solar Energy Projects

State and local zoning laws and ordinances influence how and where wind and solar energy projects can be sited and deployed. That can have a measurable impact on U.S. renewable energy resource potential; however, publicly available data on state and local wind energy and solar power ordinances have not been available in one place—until now. NREL released two new databases of state and local wind and solar energy zoning laws and ordinances in the United States. The data sets are machine-readable, so geospatial analysts and researchers can readily analyze siting impacts.

Learn more about the new publicly available data sets.

Assessing Power System Reliability in a Changing Grid, Environment

From increasing decarbonization, electrification, and distributed generation, to more frequent extreme weather events from climate change, the electric power system is undergoing immense change. These factors impact how the grid is planned and operated to maintain safe and reliable power. To frame the issue of reliability, NREL researchers use the "three Rs" of power system reliability: resource adequacy, operational reliability, and resilience. All three are required for a safe and reliable power system. The concept has guided recent NREL studies on maintaining reliability with a changing grid and environment.

Learn how NREL uses the three Rs to assess power system reliability.

DOE Announces $60 Million To Advance Clean Hydrogen Technologies and Decarbonize the Grid

DOE recently announced $40 million in funding to advance the development and deployment of clean hydrogen technologies. To further decarbonize the grid, DOE is also launching a $20 million university research consortium to help states and tribal communities successfully implement grid resilience programs and achieve decarbonization goals.

Read the full DOE announcement.

Long Story Short: Energy Systems Integration Thought Leader Eliza Hotchkiss on Place-Based Energy Resilience

Watch our recent video featuring ESI thought leader Eliza Hotchkiss on place-based resilience strategies and the importance in defining how resilience is measured, monetized, and implemented across different communities and geographies. This is the first of a new "Long Story Short" series that will explore leading-edge topics across energy systems integration (ESI), showcasing NREL experts who are driving change in these critical areas of research.

Hotchkiss is a senior resilience analyst and the manager of NREL's Resilient Systems Design and Engineering group. Her research focus is on analysis and outreach to increase the deployment of resilient technologies and best practices within infrastructure systems and operations. Learn more about what Hotchkiss and her team are doing to support NREL's research in energy system resilience.

Publications Roundup

Cyber-Physical Dynamic System (CPDS) Modeling for Frequency Regulation and AGC Services of Distributed Energy Resources

Distributed energy resources (DERs) have the potential to stabilize the system frequency across both transmission and distribution systems, but much remains unknown about how such frequency services will perform. The authors of this technical report developed an open-source methodology for co-simulating DER impacts on transmission and distribution systems, showing that important considerations come into play for frequency services from DERs. First, the authors modeled communication latency in a system with DERs, showing that latency could have severe effects if not accounted for in automatic generation control schemes. Next, the authors modeled frequency services from plug-in electric vehicles (EVs), finding that EVs have great potential to provide both primary and secondary frequency regulation after contingencies. The research provides a reliable analysis of important considerations for frequency services from DERs.

Evaluation and Suitability of Using SERI QC Software for Estimating Measurement Uncertainty

This is the first of six reports regarding the quality and uncertainty of solar measurement data. This report evaluates the software SERI QC, which has been used for three decades to assess solar data quality. With slight changes, SERI QC can also calculate the uncertainty from operational factors, an improvement over current uncertainty estimation. The authors propose and review two approaches for introducing operational uncertainty to SERI QC, assessing their relative advantages, and indicating which would be easier to implement and more transparent. This work will increase the accuracy of solar data, broadly supporting research and industry efforts.

Evaluating WRF-Solar EPS Cloud Mask Forecast Using the NSRDB, Solar Energy

Accurately forecasting clouds in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models is key to accurately predicting solar irradiance and improving the accuracy of day-ahead solar forecasts; however, validating these forecasts is challenging because it requires evaluating different types of clouds over a wide variety of regions. This study published in Solar Energy analyzes the cloud occurrence over the contiguous United States predicted by the Weather Research and Forecasting-Solar Ensemble Prediction System (WRF-Solar) to identify the strengths and limitations of NWP models. Using satellite observations from the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB), the study develops a comprehensive characterization of model performance to identify model weakness, leading to improvement in cloud and solar radiation forecasting.