Energy Systems Integration Newsletter: July 2024

In this edition, NREL optimizes transmission modeling efficiency for the National Transmission Planning Study, the Spring 2024 Solar Industry Update shows major growth in solar photovoltaic deployment, utility feedback is requested for cyber risk quantification application, and more.

NREL Researchers Collaborate To Optimize Transmission Modeling Efficiency

Advanced computing plays a pivotal role in accelerating clean energy research at NREL. Within NREL’s Energy Systems Integration Facility, the Modeling, Simulation, and Optimization Capability team works with researchers across NREL on grid modernization, energy systems integration, and mobility electrification projects. Researchers for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Transmission Planning Study came to the Modeling, Simulation, and Optimization Capability team with a need: They wanted to create a nodal representation of the U.S. transmission system with 95,000 buses and 130,000 transmission lines. Learn how the Modeling, Simulation, and Optimization Capability team, through advanced computing and modeling capabilities, helped support the magnitude of analysis envisioned in the National Transmission Planning Study.

Spring 2024 Solar Industry Update Shows Continued Growth in United States, Global Markets 

NREL has released its Spring 2024 Solar Industry Update, offering a comprehensive look at solar market data for the entirety of 2023. The latest installment of the quarterly update shows a year of major growth in solar photovoltaic deployment, shipping, and manufacturing, both domestically and globally. In the United States, photovoltaics made up 54% of the new electricity generation capacity in 2023. Internationally, 446 GW of direct current photovoltaics were installed, half of which were installed in China. Find out what other insights, data visualizations, and analyses the Spring 2024 Solar Industry Update has to offer.

Utility Feedback Requested for Cyber Risk Quantification Application for Clean Energy Upgrades

Many states and localities across the United States aim to achieve 100% clean energy in the next 5 to 25 years. Accompanying the clean energy transition is a need to understand how restructuring the grid will change the cybersecurity attack surface and accompanying cybersecurity risks. A new NREL-developed proof-of-concept application called Cyber100 Compass offers a promising, novel approach for assessing and quantifying the impacts of cyberattacks on future power systems that have high deployments of renewables. Although the application is not yet mature enough for use as a decision-making tool, NREL researchers are requesting utility feedback to accelerate Cyber100 Compass toward that goal. Learn about Cyber100 Compass and how to pilot the proof-of-concept application.

Tell Me Something Grid: Sherin Ann Abraham Is Lighting the Path To Supply Clean Energy to Every Home

In the latest installment of NREL’s Tell Me Something Grid Series, electric grid researcher Sherin Ann Abraham dives into the essential task of modernizing the distribution grid. She discusses the challenges and opportunities in adapting the grid to support electrification and the widespread adoption of renewable energy. Abraham highlights the urgent need to address the nation’s current distribution transformer shortage, which poses a significant obstacle to grid modernization. She also discusses the need for interdisciplinary research to ensure equitable energy access so that all communities can benefit from the clean energy transition. Read her full article to learn more.

Unlock Expert Energy Analysis With REopt

Energy systems are becoming increasingly distributed and integrated, and decision makers need user-friendly tools to inform strategic energy investments. The free, online REopt^® platform created by NREL is designed to help building owners, developers, utility professionals, researchers, federal agency workers, and other citizens understand their optimal energy solution. REopt considers trade-offs between energy generation, storage, and electrification technologies and identifies the most cost-effective mix of technologies to meet a user’s energy goals—including cost savings, resilience, decarbonization, and energy justice. With REopt, you don’t have to be an expert to unlock expert energy analysis. Watch our new video to learn more about REopt.

Second Cohort of Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator Evaluates System Visibility

Evolving cybersecurity risks to the U.S. energy sector can challenge rapidly transforming system architectures and technologies. NREL’s Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator™ program aims to expedite the deployment of emerging operational technologies. After the success of the first Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator cohort, the second convened to address the complexity of industrial control systems and risks arising from incomplete system visibility.

A newly released summary report details the Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator evaluation of runZero, the first solution provider to participate in Cohort 2. NREL evaluated the asset discovery capabilities of the runZero Platform, documented and analyzed results, and identified gaps in functionality and capabilities.

Grid Modernization Strategy Is Announced

What will the energy sector look like in 10 or 20 years? The U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Modernization Initiative has announced its strategy for investing in innovative technologies to modernize the nation’s power grid while ensuring it remains secure and stable. The strategic goals will be supported by the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium, which brings together 14 national laboratories through collaborative research, development, and demonstration projects.

NREL is proud to support national grid modernization across the six pillars defined in the strategy: devices and integrated systems; operations; planning; markets, policies, and regulations; resilient and secure systems; and flexible generation and load.

NREL Researchers Earn Recognition From Prestigious Conferences, Awards

The NREL-led LA100 Equity Strategies project was selected as a finalist for the 2024 Smart Electric Power Alliance Power Player of the Year award in the equity category. LA100 Equity Strategies was chosen as one of three equity category finalists for researching community-guided, data-driven strategies for increasing equity in Los Angeles’ energy transition.

NREL researcher Dana-Marie Thomas was awarded the Excellence Award at the Agrivoltaics World Conference 2024 for her leadership in the Black, Indigenous, and other Peoples of Color Roundtable Discussion on Community Engagement in Agrivoltaics. Thomas is part of the NREL Innovative Solar Practices Integrated With Rural Economies and Ecosystems (on OpenEI) team and led the roundtable participants in a discussion on the efforts and experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color in the United States developing agrivoltaics projects.

At the recent general meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Power and Energy Society, NREL power systems researchers Wenbo Wang and Xin Fang won a best paper award for their journal article "Transmission-and-Distribution Dynamic Cosimulation Framework for Distributed Energy Resource Frequency Response." Additionally, NREL Senior Electrical Engineer Gab-Su Seo won a Best Paper award for his paper Equivalent-Circuit Models of Grid-Forming Inverter-Based Resources for Electromagnetic-Transient Simulations.

New Guide Overviews Best Practices for Energy-Efficient Data Center Design

A recently published guide by the Federal Emergency Management Program, Best Practices for Energy-Efficient Data Center Design, spans the categories of information technology systems and their environmental conditions, data center air management, cooling and electrical systems, and heat recovery. The energy efficiency and environmental conditions of information technology are presented first because measures taken in these areas have a cascading effect on secondary energy savings for mechanical and electrical systems. The guide concludes with metrics and benchmarking values for evaluating a data center and its system’s energy efficiency. No design guide can offer “the most energy-efficient” data center design, but the guidelines offer suggestions that provide efficiency benefits for a variety of data center scenarios.

Publications Roundup

Evaluating Community Solar as a Measure To Promote Equitable Clean Energy Access, Nature Energy (2024)

Rooftop and community solar are alternative product classes for residential solar in the United States. Community solar, in which multiple households buy solar from shared systems, could make solar more accessible by reducing initial costs and removing adoption barriers for renters and multifamily building occupants. Here the researchers test whether community solar has expanded solar access in the United States.

An Open-Source Parallel Electromagnetic Transient Simulation Framework, Electric Power Systems Research (2024)

Ensuring the reliable operation of bulk power systems requires the use of electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation tools to identify and mitigate systemwide stability risks. Conducting EMT studies for large-scale, inverter-based resource-rich grids, however, is challenging due to the inherent computational bottleneck caused by the underlying high-fidelity models and required small time steps. This paper introduces ParaEMT: an open-source, generic EMT simulation framework designed to accelerate simulations by leveraging advanced parallel computational technologies, such as high-performance computers.

Unsupervised Learning for Equitable Distributed Energy Resources Control, Electric Power Systems Research (2024)

In the context of managing distributed energy resources within distribution networks, this work focuses on the task of developing local controllers. We propose an unsupervised learning framework to train functions that can closely approximate optimal power flow solutions. The primary aim is to establish specific conditions under which these learned functions can collectively guide the network toward desired configurations asymptotically, leveraging an incremental control approach.