From Theory to Practice: An NREL/INL Demo (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video From Theory to Practice: An NREL/INL Demo. It describes a test of a hybrid energy system at National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory.

[Narrator speaks]

The grid's flexibility—or the ability of a power system to maintain balance between generation and load during uncertainty like weather events—is the key solution to managing the U.S.'s growing future energy demands, as our heating and transportation systems become electrified.

Hybridization of our energy system—the combination of multiple technologies in energy systems—is not only an element of clean energy transition but is essential for the grid to better meet fluctuations in demand. And we need to evaluate and prove these technologies can work together before deploying.

ESnet and OSCARS technology allows researchers to emulate and explore how different combinations of these advanced energy technologies can be used to create a more resilient and reliable grid, as if they are co-located, even though they are hundreds of miles apart.

Idaho National Laboratory, INL, and NREL combined their expertise to develop experiments that assess hybrid technologies to explore complementary behavior between energy storage, such as battery, hydrogen, nuclear energy, and various renewable energy technologies.

INL has one-of-a-kind nuclear generation command and control center. And NREL has ARIES, a research platform with real-world, at-scale experimental setups for renewable and energy storage. INL and NREL will simulate three scenarios to show how pairing integrating diverse technologies into a single system allows the strengths of one technology to complement each other.

For example, when demand of electricity is high, such as during the Texas Freeze Uri in 2021, nuclear power plants can ramp up to meet it, while solar and storage can provide power during periods of sudden increase in peak demand. To set the baseline in these experiments, the first step is to establish high-fidelity asset connectivity between the two labs to demonstrate the capabilities of hybrid energy systems.

To check the level of flexibility of the hybrid energy system, we will simulate a sudden increase in load and an abrupt dip in renewable generation. This scenario would be representative of an event that causes intense cloud cover over a PV farm. As the PV output decreases and the energy demand increases, watch how a nuclear power plant ramps up to maintain power balance in the network.

Finally, we will study the sudden loss of demand in the medium voltage power network, as would happen in a power outage, like during a weather event. We will look at how the energy system goes from generation to charging. When the power network shuts down, a nuclear power plant will continue to generate power. And that generation still has to go somewhere, which is where the electrolyzer can step in to provide that grid flexibility and demonstrate how the fast response of battery and hydrogen energy storage improves flexibility of nuclear energy. As the nuclear power plant begins to balance out from the demand load loss, output from the power plant will go to an electrolyzer that will generate hydrogen for storage.

The success of this demonstration will provide a roadmap and a platform for developing nuclear renewable hybrid plants and evaluate various types of energy storage that can make the grid more reliable, efficient, and sustainable.

[Narration ends]