Energy Systems Integration Newsletter: January 2020
In this edition: 2019 annual report is now available, celebrating women in STEM, declining renewable costs drive focus on energy storage, and more.
Annual Report Published: A Year of Growth in Vision, Partnerships, and Capabilities
Outside of NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), consumers, corporations, cities, utilities, and energy industry leaders are reimagining and reconstructing the nation's energy systems. New technologies are coming online, linked by new connections, managed by new regulations, and faced with new threats. Within the ESIF, scientists, engineers, and industry partners are developing the tools and solutions to enable this transition. A review of the year's most groundbreaking research from the ESIF is now available in the 2019 ESIF Annual Report.
The report covers all ESIF research across themes such as energy security and advanced mobility. New high-impact projects are featured in the spotlight sections, including the Salt River Project research on residential battery systems. The Autonomous Energy Systems research program, which has grown from its beginnings as a small-scale Advance Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) program to involve several domains at NREL, is also spotlighted.
Important shifts in scope reflected in this report include an expansion in cybersecurity and resilience capabilities and projects as well as the announcement of a planned capability that will link ESIF infrastructure with NREL's Flatirons Campus, creating an unprecedented research environment at the +20-MW scale.
Later sections of the report provide statistics around the use and performance of the ESIF and its high-performance computer, partnerships, funding, involvement with federal programs and offices, innovations, and more. By any of these metrics, 2019 was a pivotal year, and the ESIF Annual Report describes a facility that's becoming the nation's nexus for energy security, stability, and integration.
U.S. Department of Energy Celebrates Women in STEM
Meet the talented, innovative, inspiring women scientists and engineers who work at DOE's national laboratories. Through its Women @ Energy: STEM Rising series, DOE is shining a light on women across the DOE complex, including some of NREL's own:
Kate Anderson – Integrated Applications
Andrea Watson – Integrated Applications
Dr. Alida Gerritsen – Data Analysis and Visualization
Dr. Kristi Potter – Data Analysis and Visualization
Julieta Giraldez – Power Systems Engineering
Rui Yang – Power Systems Engineering
Dr. Annabelle Pratt – Power Systems Engineering
Sheila Hayter – Energy Systems Integration
Soumya Tiwari – Energy Systems Integration
Dr. Jennifer King – Wind Energy Systems
Dr. Bethany Frew – Strategic Energy Analysis
Meghan Mooney – Strategic Energy Analysis
Emily Newes – Strategic Energy Analysis.
Declining Renewable Costs Drive Focus on Energy Storage
Declining costs in available technologies have propelled interest in energy storage like never before. The price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by about 80% over the past five years, enabling the integration of storage into solar power systems. Today, nearly 18% of all electricity produced in the United States comes from renewable energy sources, such as hydropower and wind—a figure that is forecast to climb. And as communities and entire states push toward higher percentages of power from renewables, there's no doubt storage will play an important role.
Compared with the same period a year earlier, the U.S. saw a 93% increase in the amount of storage deployed in the third quarter of 2019. By 2024, that number is expected to top 5.4 GW, according to a forecast by market research firm Wood Mackenzie Power and Renewables. The market value is forecast to increase from $720 million today to $5.1 billion in 2024. Driving such growth is an increased focus on adding renewable energy sources to the nation's grid.
"There's a misunderstanding. Storage is often looked upon as electrochemical storage or battery storage," said Adarsh Nagarajan, group manager for Power System Design and Planning at NREL. "Storage is beyond batteries. It's beyond electrochemical. It's much broader."
Read more about how NREL researchers are advancing storage technologies to accelerate the integration of renewables into the grid.
Q&A with Andrea Watson: Building Teams To Solve Global Energy Challenges
As the leader of the Integrated Decision Support group at NREL, Andrea Watson and her team work on complex energy projects and programs that require strategy development, analytics, and technical decision making. Watson also leads NREL's work with the U.S. Agency for International Development, focusing on assisting countries with policy, planning, and deployment support for advanced energy technologies.
Read more about Watson and her work in a recent Q&A.
Job Postings
Interested in joining NREL? We are growing quickly and looking to fill a variety of positions. Check out the NREL Careers page to explore a future with NREL!
R5438 Research Engineer – Transactive Energy Markets and Distributed Ledger/Blockchain Technology
R570 Graduate Intern: Domestic and International Energy Transitions
R5747 Power and Energy Systems Modeler
R5716 Intern – Autonomous Energy Systems
R5610 Postdoctoral Researcher – Bulk Power System Stability
R5679 Postdoctoral – Electro Magnetic Transient Modeling
R5156 Postdoctoral – Innovative Grid-Connected Energy Systems Model Development
R5613 Postdoctoral – Multi-Timescale Inverter-Dominated Power System Modeler
R5637 Co-Simulation and Co-Optimization for Grid-Connected Energy Systems Modeler
R5638 Power Systems Interactions with Electric Transportation Modeler
R5414 Postdoctoral Researcher – Power Systems and Electrical Engineering
R5417 Postdoctoral Fellow – Grid Integration and Control of Electric Vehicle Fleets
R5418 Postdoctoral Fellow – Distribution Grid Control and Resilience Analysis
R5254 Energy Systems Cybersecurity Graduate Intern (Summer 2020)
R5744 Energy Systems Cybersecurity Undergraduate Intern (Summer 2020)
NREL Releases New Framework for Assessing the Cybersecurity of Distributed Energy Resources
Cybersecurity protection requires constant vigilance in a rapidly growing network of interconnected distributed energy resources such as solar photovoltaic generation, wind energy, electric vehicle charging stations, and distributed energy storage systems. In response to DOE's Cybersecurity Strategy plan to secure the energy sector from internal and external threats, NREL researchers have released a framework to help federal facilities and industry researchers continually improve their cybersecurity posture.
NREL's Guide to the Distributed Energy Resources Cybersecurity Framework aligns with DOE's Cybersecurity Strategy and is both a guide and web-based application that asks users questions about their organization’s security controls, focused on cyber governance (i.e., risk management, identity and access, and information sharing); technical management or systems/device management; and physical security of a federal site or facility. The web-based tool will be ready for use the first week of February.
Unlike the traditional electric grid with centralized controls, modern distribution systems are increasingly decentralized with certain assets being controlled by consumers and third parties, both of which could potentially increase the number of access points for a malicious actor. The guide and web tool help users assess their current cybersecurity vulnerabilities—based on their own unique facilities, personnel, and operational procedures—and develop a prioritized action plan to improve their organization's security controls and practices.
Thank You for Reading: Our Top ESI Newsletter Stories of 2019
From exploring new work in autonomous energy grids to advancing energy storage, check out our top stories from the ESI Newsletter in 2019:
1. "Our Year in Review: Download the ESIF 2018 Annual Report"
2. "From the Bottom Up: Designing a Decentralized Power System"
3. "Solar-Plus-Storage Pilot at NREL Leads to Hawaii Deployment, Wins Award"
4. "Large Scale Storage System Means Big Savings for U.S. Army"
5. "NREL Partnership with Holy Cross Energy Sets a National Example for Grid Control."
New REopt Lite™ Features Help Building Owners Further Explore Costs and Benefits of Resilience and More
In addition to incorporating time-saving features and detailed guidance for international use, NREL's latest REopt Lite™ web tool upgrades (released in October 2019) address federal agencies' growing focus on providing backup power to sustain critical load during outages. Expanded resilience results enable users to optimally size new diesel generation and better understand the benefits and trade-offs of resilience. New graphics allow users to see the expected performance of a proposed system over a range of outages starting at different times of the year. Users can also compare systems that prioritize economic savings to those designed to maximize resilience and evaluate the costs and benefits of various options. Learn more about the new capabilities of REopt Lite.
Revision to Cybersecurity Standard Calls on NREL Leadership
As the electric grid becomes increasingly automated, connected, and distributed, NREL continues to guide industry's next steps in ensuring the security for such technologies as they are introduced to utilities across the country.
Following NREL's past leadership in setting standards for the interconnection of distributed energy resources (DERs), a similar urgency for cybersecurity has summoned NREL experts to lead an effort that stays one step ahead in standards development. This time, NREL will serve as vice chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standard 1547.3 (IEEE Std. 1547.3), or IEEE's Guide for Cybersecurity of Distributed Energy Resources Interconnected with Electric Power Systems.
Beginning this year, NREL researchers will team up with roughly 40 other working group members to redraft the guide. The updated guide will address missing cybersecurity solutions in the new protocols prescribed in IEEE Std. 1547-2018. It will also incorporate recent findings from field and lab experiences that have revealed new vulnerabilities and potential threats as DERs continue to be evaluated. The guide will help utilities, DER manufacturers, aggregators, grid operators, and other stakeholders to refer to one document that addresses cybersecurity-related issues of their respective infrastructures.
NREL's participation reflects the laboratory's expertise and capabilities in the cybersecurity of devices. The lab continues to lead industry guidance around best cybersecurity practices for DERs, having recently published both a framework for DER cybersecurity and an evaluation of procedures for certifying DER communications security.
The working group for IEEE Std.1547.3 will convene in February 2020 in Austin, Texas, and plans to submit the draft for initial review in July 2021. The updated guide will apply to the full range of DER systems—including fuel cells, microturbines, and energy storage systems—and it will include interconnection at the primary and secondary distribution voltage levels.
Learn more about cybersecurity research at NREL.
Fast, Flexible, and Smart: NREL's CUBE Brings Mobile Power Solutions
NREL is improving the efficiency and reliability of power for the U.S. military's forward operating bases with its Consolidated Utility Base Energy (CUBE) platform, an all-in-one, microgrid-like station that interfaces with various energy sources in place of diesel-only power generation. The CUBE could literally be a lifesaver—rather than risking trips for fuel across dangerous territory, soldiers and service members can depend on the CUBE for fast energy generation.
Designed for mobility and flexibility, the CUBE is a hybrid power generation system that converts energy from different sources—solar panels, batteries, diesel generators, and host grid power—into tactical electricity. It can connect to nearly any photovoltaic or battery asset and can be configured in parallel operation for scalable microgrid formation. The CUBE is also capable of microgrid control, making it a valuable asset in the event of an emergency for both military operations and disaster relief.
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