Energy Systems Integration Newsletter: April 2024

In this edition, NREL releases the PR100 final results, we look at how the recent solar eclipse impacted solar generation, researchers evaluate transmission options to bring offshore wind energy to communities, and more.

Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study Final Results Point to a Collaborative 100% Renewable Energy Future

The Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study offers three possible scenarios for a 100% renewable energy future—all informed by intensive modeling and research and extensive engagement with Puerto Rican communities. Led by NREL and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Grid Deployment Office in partnership with five national laboratories, and funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the final results of the study are now available on the Puerto Rico 100 website.

NREL Measures the Impact of the April Eclipse on Solar Generation

As the sun went dark, NREL’s eclipse command center was lighting up. NREL researchers monitored the real-time impacts of the 2024 total solar eclipse on the nation’s electric grid and compared them with the pre-event projections. Despite cloud cover along parts of the eclipse path (differing from the modeled clear-sky conditions), NREL’s simulations closely mirrored real power system operations on April 8. This analysis provided crucial insights and guidance to independent system operators and utilities, ensuring they were well prepared for the event.

Solar generation has increased threefold since the last North American total eclipse in 2017. Utilities and researchers took this opportunity to rehearse how to reliably serve customers during a resilience event that affects solar energy generation across a large area. National media mentions included Business Insider, Politico, and The Verge. NREL will publish a report with the full analysis in the coming months.

Researchers Provide Critical Insights to Bring Offshore Wind Energy to Communities on the East Coast

Researchers at NREL and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have spent 2 years evaluating transmission options to make the best possible connections between offshore wind projects and communities on the Atlantic Coast. Now, the Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Study team has identified ways to bring offshore wind energy to areas of high demand via transmission lines. Their plan could help reduce grid congestion, increase reliability, maximize production, and reduce costs for consumers. The study also informed the DOE Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Action Plan, which was released concurrently with the study and outlines immediate actions the United States can take to connect the first generation of Atlantic offshore wind projects to the electric grid and how the United States can increase transmission over the next several decades.

One Grid Technology to Reach 100% Renewable Energy

It’s a fact in Hawaii, Australia, or anywhere else adding substantial solar and wind: To switch to 100% renewable energy, we will need grid-forming inverters. These specialized inverters provide stability and fast response, and as explained by NREL authors in a recent IEEE Spectrum feature article, they have saved clean energy power systems.

The feature article, titled Getting the Grid to Net Zero, discusses NREL’s experiences in supporting clean power transitions and how grid-forming technology has been essential for NREL’s partners. Thanks to years of research in the area, the NREL authors also indicate where work is needed next—principally in standardization and validation, which NREL is currently leading alongside the power sector.

Find the latest on NREL’s work in grid-forming technology at the Universal Interoperability for Grid-Forming Inverters Consortium.

Wanted: Utility Partners Looking for Insight Into Their Hosting Capacity and Resilience Planning

Are you a utility that would benefit from insight into your hosting capacity for electric vehicles and distributed energy resources? Would you appreciate improved collaboration with other utilities and research organizations with minimal data sharing? NREL is seeking utility partners to help with the development of the Distribution Grid Atlas, a set of statistical hosting capacity models and representative, geospatially relevant models for substations, feeders, and low-voltage networks. These models would allow participants to: 

• Estimate electric vehicle and distributed energy resource hosting capacity on their distribution networks using a database of preexisting utility hosting capacities. 
• Understand how distribution planning design decisions affect hosting capacity, reliability, resilience, and other planning objectives.

If you are interested in participating in this no-cost, collaborative opportunity, please contact Jeremy Keen.

High-Resolution Renewable Energy Data Levels the Playing Field for International Energy Transitions

A new long-term, time-series solar data set is painting a high-resolution picture of the renewable energy potential for all of Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula. Funded by U.S. Agency for International Development missions in Ukraine and Tanzania, the data cover an 18-year historical record. The data can be used for more effective incorporation of clean energy in countries where detailed information on renewables has historically been difficult and costly to access. Maps and the complete data set can be viewed and downloaded for free on NREL’s RE Data Explorer. Read the full story on high-resolution renewable data and check out the new high-fidelity solar data.

New Video: Securing the Cloud for Energy Systems

The U.S. energy system requires secure and reliable management, and cloud services offer promising benefits. NREL researchers studied and demonstrated the cloud’s ability to manage complex energy systems and support critical system restoration, renewable generation forecasting, and grid reliability all while providing cost savings, security, and flexibility for system operators. Watch our latest video on YouTube to learn more about project CloudZero and how to get involved.

Tell Me Something Grid: A Transmission Talk With Jarrad Wright

As the U.S. moves toward a decarbonized grid, the need for more transmission capacity could grow substantially to move large quantities of low-cost renewable electricity to where it’s needed most. In this installment of Tell Me Something Grid, NREL grid analyst Jarrad Wright discusses future transmission technologies and needs and how the transmission system might operate to support a low-carbon grid. That’s the focus of the U.S. Department of Energy Grid Deployment Office National Transmission Planning Study, of which Wright is a key researcher. Read about his role in the study and how NREL’s grid researchers are helping to shape the grid of the future.

Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis Hosts 2024 Annual Meeting and Launches Sustainable Agriculture Catalyzer

The Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis welcomed more than 120 clean energy leaders from across research, universities, industry, and nonprofits to the 2024 Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis Annual Meeting to collaborate on emerging clean energy challenges. The institute uses the insights from the meeting to guide upcoming strategic partnerships and multidisciplinary projects. Once such project is the Sustainable Agriculture Catalyzer, a 2- to 3-year seed research project that launched following the meeting. Agricultural decarbonization was a featured topic at the meeting, and the catalyzer will expand efforts by working to identify and quantify cobenefits of agricultural decarbonization strategies. Read more about the annual meeting and the Sustainable Agriculture Catalyzer on the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis website.

Publications Roundup

Anomaly Detection and Mitigation for Dynamic Frequency Regulation in Hydropower-Battery Systems: Preprint, NREL Conference Paper (2024)

Hydropower operators and energy storage providers are increasingly interested in participating in frequency regulation services, driven by the incentives offered by independent system operators, such as the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection, in a competitive electricity market. This transition, however, unfolds against the backdrop of a modernizing and rapidly digitizing electric grid, exposing the integrated legacy infrastructure and vulnerable communication networks to a multitude of cybersecurity threats. These evolving threats not only endanger grid operations but also have the potential to trigger cascading disruptions across the broader grid network and influence regulation markets. This work presents an approach for developing an anomaly detection and mitigation system to address cybersecurity challenges during the participation of a hydropower-integrated battery energy storage system in a frequency regulation market.

A Cybersecurity Testbed for Smart Buildings, NREL Conference Paper (2024)

Smart buildings are equipped with a plethora of cyber-physical systems, such as Internet of Things devices and building automation systems. These devices, especially in commercial buildings, use legacy communications and hardware that were not designed with cybersecurity in mind. With increasing cyber threats in recent years, smart buildings have become an increasing target for attacks, but not enough published data are available from these incidents to study or replicate the scenarios to defend buildings. As part of the Building Intelligence with Layered Defense Using Security-Constrained Optimization and Security Risk Detection project, the authors developed a cybersecurity test bed for smart buildings. This test bed includes a building simulation tool, virtual devices, emulated operational technology networks, and remote hardware-in-the-loop. Using this test bed, the authors performed different cyberattacks on the smart building model and collected both physical building data, to understand the impacts on the building, and network data, to aid in separating mechanical faults from cyberattacks during the detection.

High-Resolution Meteorology With Climate Change Impacts From Global Climate Model Data Using Generative Machine Learning, Nature Energy (2024)

Understanding the impact of climate change on energy supply and demand is critical to future-looking energy systems planning. Energy analysts and modelers previously relied on historical data for system planning; however, a new development by NREL opens the door to high-resolution data that quantify the future impacts of climate change. Super-Resolution for Renewable Energy Resource Data with Climate Change Impacts uses machine learning to generate highly detailed temperature, humidity, wind speed, and solar irradiance data based on the latest state-of-the-art future climate projections. Although there are a multitude of existing downscaling methods, this data represents a new field of generative machine learning methods that can produce physically realistic high-resolution data 40 times faster than traditional methods.