Energy Systems Integration Newsletter: January 2023
In this edition, NREL provides a visualization tool for a tri-industry cyber-defense exercise, an NREL toolkit helps Tallahassee develop a pathway to 100% clean energy, Dana-Marie Thomas describes how she helps communities advance their clean energy goals, and more.
Visualizing a Cyber-Secure Future
Data breaches and cyberattacks are on the rise, placing pressure on U.S. companies to enhance their cybersecurity. To strengthen their defenses, six critical infrastructure companies convened for a 2-day exercise hosted on Mastercard’s cyber range, which emulates information technology networks for cyber exercises. NREL provided a visualization to make the simulation easier to view for on-the-fly decision-making. This is one example of the many ways NREL’s cyber range can support professional development for a variety of industries and applications.
Find out more about the exercise, visualization, and NREL’s workforce development capabilities.
Toolkit Helps Tallahassee Ready for Clean Energy Implementation
To help Florida communities plan their clean energy transitions, NREL created a toolkit that outlines resources at every planning stage for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and sustainable transportation. NREL and Tallahassee used the toolkit, along with the State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) Platform and the Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) tool, to develop a technical and economic feasibility plan for the city. The plan is helping to put Tallahassee on a pathway to reach its goal of 100% net clean, renewable energy by 2050.
Learn more about how our new toolkit and other key NREL tools helped Tallahassee create plans to reach its clean energy goals.
Q&A With Dana-Marie Thomas: Clean Energy for Healthy Communities
Dana-Marie Thomas believes that all communities should have access to clean, affordable, and reliable energy and that energy resilience is essential for promoting health and well-being. Thomas currently applies her expertise in community health and stakeholder engagement as a researcher in NREL’s Resilient Systems Design and Engineering Group.
In our latest Q&A, Thomas describes how she works with communities across the country to advance their clean energy goals and the ways local leaders can access expertise and resources from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Register Today for the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis 2023 Annual Meeting
Join us for the 2023 Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis Annual Meeting April 25–27, 2023, in Golden, Colorado, as we bring together clean energy experts across universities, research, nonprofits, and industry to network and pivot toward addressing new clean energy challenges.
- Hear from thought leaders on global energy trends, approaches to high-impact applied research, and leveraging current investments for long-term energy transformation.
- Collaborate in discussion panels on emerging challenges in Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis exploratory areas, including climate adaptation and clean energy intersections, the technology-society interface, the clean energy workforce, agricultural decarbonization, and industrial decarbonization.
- Engage with presentations on the latest high-impact research in supply chain analysis, supporting community energy transitions, and atmospheric implications of clean energy.
- Get the latest updates on prizes at the American-Made Program Earth Day Event.
Check the agenda on the registration page for the latest information on sessions. Space is limited, so register today. For questions, email Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis.
Leader in Geospatial Data Science Named Most Promising Scientist
Anthony Lopez, senior researcher at NREL, has been named the Most Promising Scientist by Great Minds in STEM, a prestigious award that honors the highest-achieving scientists and engineers from the Hispanic community across the United States.
During his decade-plus tenure at NREL, Lopez has not only proven himself as a leader and visionary in the field of geospatial data science but also served as a dedicated mentor. Insights from his work are informing pathways to decarbonize the energy system and mitigate climate change—inspiring the next generation of STEM leaders along the way.
Find out more about Anthony Lopez’s achievements and contributions to advancing geospatial data science.
Video: A Look Inside Scientific Computing for Clean Energy
NREL’s supercomputer is the largest in the world dedicated to energy efficiency and renewable energy research. In this video, see how NREL uses computational science to calculate and visualize solutions to complex clean energy challenges—from designing safer batteries in electric vehicles to guiding Los Angeles on its path to 100% renewable energy and optimizing wind plant design.
Learn more about our computational science research.
Job Postings
Are you or someone you know interested in joining NREL? We are rapidly growing and looking to fill a variety of positions. Below are job openings within NREL’s Energy Systems Integration team. Check out the NREL careers page to find even more opportunities and explore a future with NREL.
R10094—ESIF Energy Sciences Labs Area Work Supervisor
R9921—Smart Energy Lab Communications Engineer II/III
R10149—Post-Doctoral Researcher—Power System Resilience and DER Optimization
R10155—Senior Software Engineer—Cybersecurity Reverse Engineering
R9109—Researcher—Cyber-Physical Energy Systems
R9424—Research Technician I/II—Cybersecurity
R9860—Software Engineer—Cyber Visualization and Complex Systems
R9881—Technical Project Manager—Cybersecurity Research
R9902—Information System Security Engineer—Cybersecurity Research
R9911—Software Engineer—Cybersecurity Reverse Engineering
R9476—Researcher—Cybersecurity OT/ICS
R9808—Researcher—Hydrogen and Industrial Systems Analyst
R9813—Postdoctoral Researcher—Hydrogen and Industrial Systems
R9883—Project Controller II/III—Strategic Energy Analysis Center
R10046—Product Owner/Manager—Software Development
R10001—Grid Planning and Analysis Researcher
R9990—Energy Storage Chief Scientist
R10191—Integrated Power Systems Engineer and Software Developer
R10280—Prize/Project Leader—American-Made Challenges Program
R10376—Clean Energy Finance Expert—Researcher II–IV
R10231—Workforce Development Researcher
R10282—Business Support Professional II
Free Trainings for Site Energy Managers, Resilience Professionals, and More
Are you a federal site energy manager or a resilience professional? Do you need to meet the Biden-Harris Administration’s Executive Order 14057 or general decarbonization goals? Or are you a member of the public interested in assessing your facility’s potential for renewable energy improvements and sustainability?
Check out the Federal Energy Management Program’s Training Catalog. The catalog features free and accredited online and on-demand training opportunities offered by the Federal Energy Management Program.
Upcoming offerings:
- March 2—Inflation Reduction Act: Implications for Federal Agency Decarbonization
- March 14—REopt® and Federal On-Site Clean Energy: Site Data Requirements
- March 15—Implementing Microgrids in the Federal Sector: Microgrid Conceptual Design
- March 21—REopt and Federal On-Site Clean Energy: Meeting Decarbonization and Resilience Goals
- March 29—Implementing Microgrids in the Federal Sector: Planning for Microgrid Implementation
Visit the Federal Energy Management Program Training Catalog to find more training opportunities and register for upcoming events.
Quantifying Impacts of Renewable Electricity Deployment on Air Quality and Human Health in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia experiences some of the worst air quality in the world, with substantial pollution coming from fossil-fueled power generation. Exposure to fine particulate matter, including contributions from fossil-fueled electricity generation, is one of the leading environmental risk factors for mortality in Southeast Asia, causing hundreds of deaths each year.
In collaboration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Centre for Energy and the University of Minnesota, and with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development, NREL researchers studied four power sector renewables expansion and integration scenarios based on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Interconnection Masterplan Study III for future Southeast Asia power generation. The study quantifies potential non-greenhouse gas air pollutant emissions based on these scenarios and then calculates their potential impact on air quality and health for the region. The study identifies which scenario could yield the greatest health benefits to citizens in Southeast Asia.
For more on these findings, check out the air quality in the Southeast Asia fact sheet, the report, and the launch webinar.
Publications Roundup
This work analyzes the expansion of electrical infrastructure that might be necessary to serve electric aviation at a subset of airports based on their flight demand. Additionally, the researchers estimated the on-site distributed energy resources (i.e., solar photovoltaics and battery energy storage systems) that could serve electric aircraft in cost-effective scenarios.
The Situational Awareness of Grid Anomalies project created visualization and analysis tools that bridge two vastly different realms—power and broadband. The project built on foundational power system tools developed at NREL that were integrated with an ever-increasing set of Gridmetrics data collected from the cable television broadband network infrastructure to visualize outages and anomalies at higher spatial and temporal fidelities than can be achieved using traditional utility control systems. The Situational Awareness of Grid Anomalies project improves situational awareness and advances the resiliency of the power grid in the face of increasing cyberattacks and new, operational challenges related to the grid integration of distributed energy resources.
This success story highlights Sandia National Laboratories and its holistic data center approach, which provides resilient energy- and water-efficient cooling for high-performance computing systems. With support from the Federal Energy Management Program, NREL provides data center and water performance technical assistance to federal agencies, including other national laboratories such as Sandia. NREL and Sandia have a long history of partnering on efficient data center design and operation.
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