This fact sheet describes the purpose, lab specifications, applications scenarios, and information on how to partner with NREL's Energy Storage Laboratory at the Energy Systems Integration Facility. At NREL's Energy Storage Laboratory in the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), research focuses on the integration of energy storage systems (both stationary and vehicle-mounted) and interconnection with the utility grid. Focusing on battery technologies, but also hosting ultra-capacitors and other electrical energy storage technologies, the laboratory will provide all resources necessary to develop, test, and prove energy storage system performance and compatibility with distributed energy systems. The laboratory will also provide robust vehicle testing capability, including a drive-in environmental chamber, which can accommodate commercial-sized hybrid, electric, biodiesel, ethanol, compressed natural gas, and hydrogen fueled vehicles. The Energy Storage Laboratory is designed to ensure personnel and equipment safety when testing hazardous battery systems or other energy storage technologies. Closely coupled with the research electrical distribution bus at ESIF, the Energy Storage Laboratory will offer megawatt-scale power testing capability as well as advanced hardware-in-the-loop and model-in-the-loop simulation capabilities. Some application scenarios are: The following types of tests - Performance, Efficiency, Safety, Model validation, and Long duration reliability. (2) Performed on the following equipment types …

This presentation describes how you economically manage integration costs of storage and variable generation.

This fact sheet describes the purpose, lab specifications, applications scenarios, and information on how to partner with NREL's Energy Systems Fabrication Laboratory at the Energy Systems Integration Facility. The Energy Systems Fabrication Laboratory at NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) manufactures components for fuel cells and electrochemical cells using a variety of manufacturing techniques. Fabricated components include catalysts, thin-film and gas diffusion electrodes, and membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs). The laboratory supports NREL's fuel cell and electrochemical cell related research. The main focus of the laboratory is to provide support for fuel cell research that is performed in adjacent laboratories. The laboratory enables NREL to manufacture fuel cells in-house using, for example, experimental catalyst developed at NREL. It further enables the creation of MEAs containing artificial defects required for the systematic study of performance and lifetime effects and the evaluation of in-house and externally developed quality control diagnostics for high volume production of fuel cell. Experiments performed in the laboratory focus mainly on the development of alternative fuel cell manufacturing methods.

This fact sheet describes the purpose, lab specifications, applications scenarios, and information on how to partner with NREL's Energy Systems High Pressure Test Laboratory at the Energy Systems Integration Facility. The purpose of the Energy Systems High Pressure Test Laboratory at NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) is to provide space where high pressure hydrogen components can be safely tested. High pressure hydrogen storage is an integral part of energy storage technology for use in fuel cell and in other distributed energy scenarios designed to effectively utilize the variability inherent with renewable energy sources. The high pressure storage laboratory is co-located with energy storage activities such as ultra-capacitors, super conducting magnetic flywheel and mechanical energy storage systems laboratories for an integrated approach to system development and demonstration. Hazards associated with hydrogen storage at pressures up to 10,000 psi include oxygen displacement, combustion, explosion, and pressurization of room air due to fast release and physical hazards associated with burst failure modes. A critical understanding of component failure modes is essential in developing reliable, robust designs that will minimize failure risk beyond the end of service life. Development of test protocol for accelerated life testing to accurately scale to real world operating …

This fact sheet describes the purpose, lab specifications, applications scenarios, and information on how to partner with NREL's Energy Systems Integration Laboratory at the Energy Systems Integration Facility. The Energy Systems Integration Laboratory at NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) provides a flexible, renewable-ready platform for research, development, and testing of state-of-the-art hydrogen-based and other energy storage systems. The main focus of the laboratory is assessment of the technical readiness, performance characterization, and research to help industry move these systems towards optimal renewable-based production and efficient utilization of hydrogen. Research conducted in the Energy Systems Integration Laboratory will advance engineering knowledge and market deployment of hydrogen technologies to support a growing need for versatile distributed electricity generation, applications in microgrids, energy storage for renewables integration, and home and station-based hydrogen vehicle fueling. Research activities are targeted to improve the technical readiness of the following: (1) Low and high temperature electrolyzers, reformers and fuel cells; (2) Mechanical and electrochemical compression systems; (3) Hydrogen storage; (4) Hydrogen vehicle refueling; and (5) Internal combustion or turbine technology for electricity production. Examples of experiments include: (1) Close- and direct-coupling of renewable energy sources (PV and wind) to electrolyzers; (2) Performance and efficiency validation of …

This fact sheet describes the purpose, lab specifications, applications scenarios, and information on how to partner with NREL's Energy Systems Sensor Laboratory at the Energy Systems Integration Facility. The mission of the Energy Systems Sensor Laboratory at NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) is to research, develop, test, and evaluate the performance of commercial and developing hydrogen sensor technologies to support the needs of the emerging hydrogen infrastructure. Sensor performance metrics analogous to national and international standards are quantified. Information gained from the sensor testing is provided to the sensor manufacturers to aid in sensor development, to end users to guide sensor selection and deployment, and to committees to support the development of codes and standards. The laboratory also provides support to end-users, including assessment of technologies for applications, information on deployment. Some application scenarios are: (1) Testing and analyzing sensors are over a range of controlled and monitored environmental conditions; (2) Testing the impact of interferants and poisons; (3) Evaluating the life span of sensors with separate dedicated life test fixtures; and (4) Testing of hydrogen sensors for process applications, including responses under high hydrogen concentrations.

This article describes results of the radiation environmental monitoring performed in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (ChEZ) during the period following the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident. This article presents a brief overview of five comprehensive reports generated under Contract No. DE-AC09-96SR18500 (Washington Savannah River Company LLC, Subcontract No. AC55559N, SOW No. ON8778) and summarizes characteristics of the ChEZ and its post-accident status and the history of development of the radiation monitoring research in the ChEZ is described. This article addresses characteristics of the radiation monitoring in the ChEZ, its major goals and objectives, and changes of these goals and objectives in the course of time, depending on the tasks associated with the phase of mitigation of the ChNPP accident consequences. The results of the radiation monitoring in the ChEZ during the last 25 years are also provided.

This report describes the 2010 research conducted under the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) project EST-P-09-1, titled Evaluation of Life History Diversity, Habitat Connectivity, and Survival Benefits Associated with Habitat Restoration Actions in the Lower Columbia River and Estuary, and known as the 'Salmon Benefits' study. The primary goal of the study is to establish scientific methods to quantify habitat restoration benefits to listed salmon and trout in the lower Columbia River and estuary (LCRE) in three required areas: habitat connectivity, early life history diversity, and survival (Figure ES.1). The general study approach was to first evaluate the state of the science regarding the ability to quantify benefits to listed salmon and trout from habitat restoration actions in the LCRE in the 2009 project year, and then, if feasible, in subsequent project years to develop quantitative indices of habitat connectivity, early life history diversity, and survival. Based on the 2009 literature review, the following definitions are used in this study. Habitat connectivity is defined as a landscape descriptor concerning the ability of organisms to move among habitat patches, including the spatial arrangement of habitats (structural connectivity) and how the perception and behavior of salmon affect the potential for movement …

Recently the generation of electron bunch trains with sub-picosecond time structure has been experimentally demonstrated at the A0 photoinjector of Fermilab using a transverse-longitudinal phase-space exchange beamline. The temporal profile of the bunch train can be easily tuned to meet the requirements of the applications of modern accelerator beams. In this paper we report the A0 bunch-train experiment and explore numerically the possible extension of this technique to shorter time scales at the Fermilab SRF Accelerator Test Facility, a superconducting linear electron accelerator currently under construction in the NML building.

Network measurement is a discipline that provides the techniques to collect data that are fundamental to many branches of computer science. While many capturing tools and comparisons have made available in the literature and elsewhere, the impact of these packet capturing tools on existing processes have not been thoroughly studied. While not a concern for collection methods in which dedicated servers are used, many usage scenarios of packet capturing now requires the packet capturing tool to run concurrently with operational processes. In this work we perform experimental evaluations of the performance impact that packet capturing process have on web-based services; in particular, we observe the impact on web servers. We find that packet capturing processes indeed impact the performance of web servers, but on a multi-core system the impact varies depending on whether the packet capturing and web hosting processes are co-located or not. In addition, the architecture and behavior of the web server and process scheduling is coupled with the behavior of the packet capturing process, which in turn also affect the web server's performance.

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U.S. and global demand for hydrogen is large and growing for use in the production of chemicals, materials, foods, pharmaceuticals, and fuels (including some low-carbon biofuels). Conventional hydrogen production technologies are expensive, have sizeable space requirements, and are large carbon dioxide emitters. A novel sorbent-based hydrogen production technology is being developed and advanced toward field demonstration that promises smaller size, greater efficiency, lower costs, and reduced to no net carbon dioxide emissions compared to conventional hydrogen production technology. Development efforts at the pilot scale have addressed materials compatibility, hot-gas filtration, and high-temperature solids transport and metering, among other issues, and have provided the basis for a preliminary process design with associated economics. The process was able to achieve a 93% hydrogen purity on a purge gasfree basis directly out of the pilot unit prior to downstream purification.

The goal of this LDRD project is to develop a rapid first-order experimental procedure for the testing of advanced cladding materials that may be considered for generation IV nuclear reactors. In order to investigate this, a technique was developed to expose the coupons of potential materials to high displacement damage at elevated temperatures to simulate the neutron environment expected in Generation IV reactors. This was completed through a high temperature high-energy heavy-ion implantation. The mechanical properties of the ion irradiated region were tested by either micropillar compression or nanoindentation to determine the local properties, as a function of the implantation dose and exposure temperature. In order to directly compare the microstructural evolution and property degradation from the accelerated testing and classical neutron testing, 316L, 409, and 420 stainless steels were tested. In addition, two sets of diffusion couples from 316L and HT9 stainless steels with various refractory metals. This study has shown that if the ion irradiation size scale is taken into consideration when developing and analyzing the mechanical property data, significant insight into the structural properties of the potential cladding materials can be gained in about a week.

The Alden turbine was developed through the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) former Advanced Hydro Turbine Systems Program (1994-2006) and, more recently, through the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the DOE's Wind & Water Power Program. The primary goal of the engineering study described here was to provide a commercially competitive turbine design that would yield fish passage survival rates comparable to or better than the survival rates of bypassing or spilling flow. Although the turbine design was performed for site conditions corresponding to 92 ft (28 m) net head and a discharge of 1500 cfs (42.5 cms), the design can be modified for additional sites with differing operating conditions. During the turbine development, design modifications were identified for the spiral case, distributor (stay vanes and wicket gates), runner, and draft tube to improve turbine performance while maintaining features for high fish passage survival. Computational results for pressure change rates and shear within the runner passage were similar in the original and final turbine geometries, while predicted minimum pressures were higher for the final turbine. The final turbine geometry and resulting flow environments are expected to further enhance the fish passage characteristics of the turbine. Computational results for the …

An agglomeration of factors has stifled the economic promise of CPV technology. Foremost among these factors are: insufficient optical efficiency, misfit with existing solar infrastructure and production capabilities, and inadequate reliability of the optic-receiver pairing. These difficulties are largely driven by the choice of optics. The CPV industry is constrained in a paradigm of bulky reflective or refractive optics that operate best at either low concentration (2-5X) or high concentration (100X and above). Low concentration approaches are plagued by marginal economics, while high concentration approaches face heightened technical risks. High concentration systems inevitably face thermal management hurdles and often do not fit well with the existing solar infrastructure. Using Aggregated Total Internal Reflection (ATIR) as the optical mechanism for gathering light, a cost effective, line-focus optic can be produced at scale to provide superior optical efficiency in a flat profile and operate at a mid level of concentration to mitigate the tradeoff between economic benefit and adoptability. Substantiating this motivational premise behind the ATIR optics approach to CPV requires performance data. Foremost among the goals for establishing the viability of ATIR optics in solar is demonstrating optical efficiency. Banyan Energy performed an outdoor test of optical efficiency (OE) based on …

The anticipated increase in variable generation in the Western Interconnection (WI) over the next several years has raised concerns about how to maintain system balance, especially in smaller Balancing Areas (BAs). Given renewable portfolio standards in the West, it is possible that more than 50 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity will be installed by 2020. Significant quantities of solar generation are likely to be added as well. The consequent increase in variability and uncertainty that must be managed by the conventional generation fleet and responsive load make it attractive to consider ways in which Balancing Area Authorities (BAAs) can pool their variability and response resources, thus taking advantage of geographic and temporal diversity to increase overall operational efficiency. Our analysis considers several alternative forms of an Energy Imbalance Market (EIM) that have been proposed in the non-market areas of the WI. The proposed EIM includes two changes in operating practices that independently reduce variability and increase access to responsive resources: BAA cooperation and sub-hourly dispatch. As proposed, the EIM does not consider any form of coordinated unit commitment; however, over time it is possible that BAAs would develop formal or informal coordination plans. This report examines the benefits of several …

In the most highly contaminated region of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: the 'Red Forest' site, the accumulation of the major dose-affecting radionuclides ({sup 90}Sr and {sup 137}Cs) within the components of an ecological system encompassing 3,000 m{sup 2} were characterized. The sampled components included soils (top 0-10 cm depth), Molina caerulea (blue moor grass), Camponotus vagus (carpenter ants) and Pelobates fuscus (spade-footed toad). In a comparison among the components of this ecosystem, the {sup 90}Sr and {sup 137}Cs concentrations measured in 40 separate grids exhibited significant differences, while the frequency distribution of the values were close to a logarithmically normal leptokurtic distribution with a significant right-side skew. While it is important to identify localized areas of high contamination or 'hot spots,' including these values in the arithmetic mean may overestimate the exposure risk. In component sample sets that exhibited logarithmically normal distribution, the geometrical mean more accurately characterizes a site. Ideally, risk assessment is most confidently achieved when the arithmetic and geometrical means are most similar, meaning the distribution approaches normal. Through bioaccumulation, the highest concentrations of {sup 90}Sr and {sup 137}Cs were measured in the blue moor grass and spade-footed toad. These components also possessed distribution parameters that shifted …

This fact sheet describes the purpose, lab specifications, applications scenarios, and information on how to partner with NREL's Fuel Cell Development and Test Laboratory at the Energy Systems Integration Facility. NREL's state-of-the-art Fuel Cell Development and Test Laboratory in the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) supports NREL's fuel cell research and development projects through in-situ fuel cell testing. Current projects include various catalyst development projects, a system contaminant project, and the manufacturing project. Testing capabilities include but are not limited to single cell fuel cells and fuel cell stacks.

Nuclear fuel reprocessing plants contain a wealth of plant monitoring data including material measurements, process monitoring, administrative procedures, and physical protection elements. Future facilities are moving in the direction of highly-integrated plant monitoring systems that make efficient use of the plant data to improve monitoring and reduce costs. The Separations and Safeguards Performance Model (SSPM) is an analysis tool that is used for modeling advanced monitoring systems and to determine system response under diversion scenarios. This report both describes the architecture for such a future monitoring system and present results under various diversion scenarios. Improvements made in the past year include the development of statistical tests for detecting material loss, the integration of material balance alarms to improve physical protection, and the integration of administrative procedures. The SSPM has been used to demonstrate how advanced instrumentation (as developed in the Material Protection, Accounting, and Control Technologies campaign) can benefit the overall safeguards system as well as how all instrumentation is tied into the physical protection system. This concept has the potential to greatly improve the probability of detection for both abrupt and protracted diversion of nuclear material.

Objectives are to: (1) Investigate novel engine control strategies targeted at rapid engine/catalyst warming for the purpose of mitigating tailpipe emissions from plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) exposed to multiple engine cold start events; and (2) Validate and optimize hybrid supervisory control techniques developed during previous and on-going research projects by integrating them into the vehicle level control system and complementing them with the modified engine control strategies in order to further reduce emissions during both cold start and engine re-starts. Approach used are: (1) Perform a literature search of engine control strategies used in conventional powertrains to reduce cold start emissions; (2) Develop an open source engine controller providing full access to engine control strategies in order to implement new engine/catalyst warm-up behaviors; (3) Modify engine cold start control algorithms and characterize impact on cold start behavior; and (4) Develop an experimental Engine-In-the-Loop test stand in order to validate control methodologies and verify transient thermal behavior and emissions of the real engine when combined with a virtual hybrid powertrain. Some major accomplishments are: (1) Commissioned a prototype engine controller on a GM Ecotec 2.4l direct injected gasoline engine on an engine test cell at the University of Tennessee. (2) …

This project seeks to identify a new signature for actinide element detection in active interrogation. This technique works by exciting and identifying long-lived nuclear excited states (isomers) in the actinide isotopes and/or primary fission products. Observation of isomers in the fission products will provide a signature for fissile material. For the actinide isomers, the decay time and energy of the isomeric state is unique to a particular isotope, providing an unambiguous signature for SNM. This project entails isomer identification and characterization and neutron population studies. This document summarizes activities from its third year - completion of the isomer identification characterization experiments and initialization of the neutron population experiments. The population and decay of the isomeric state in 235U remain elusive, although a number of candidate gamma rays have been identified. In the course of the experiments, a number of fission fragment isomers were populated and measured [Ressler 2010]. The decays from these isomers may also provide a suitable signature for the presence of fissile material. Several measurements were conducted throughout this project. This report focuses on the results of an experiment conducted collaboratively by PNNL, LLNL and LBNL in December 2010 at LBNL. The measurement involved measuring the gamma-rays emitted …

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced in May 2011 a new cooperative research effort comprising DOE, the U.S. Council for Automotive Research (composed of automakers Ford Motor Company, General Motors Company, and Chrysler Group), Tesla Motors, and representatives of the electric utility and petroleum industries. Known as U.S. DRIVE (Driving Research and Innovation for Vehicle efficiency and Energy sustainability), it represents DOE's commitment to developing public-private partnerships to fund high risk-high reward research into advanced automotive technologies. The new partnership replaces and builds upon the partnership known as FreedomCAR (derived from 'Freedom' and 'Cooperative Automotive Research') that ran from 2002 through 2010 and the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles initiative that ran from 1993 through 2001. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL's) Power Electronics and Electric Machines (PEEM) subprogram within the DOE Vehicle Technologies Program (VTP) provides support and guidance for many cutting-edge automotive technologies now under development. Research is focused on developing revolutionary new power electronics (PE), electric motor (EM), and traction drive system technologies that will leapfrog current on-the-road technologies. The research and development (R&D) is also aimed at achieving a greater understanding of and improvements in the way the various new components of tomorrow's …

NREL has initiated the Gearbox Reliability Collaborative (GRC) to investigate the root cause of the low wind turbine gearbox reliability. The GRC follows a multi-pronged approach based on a collaborative of manufacturers, owners, researchers and consultants. The project combines analysis, field testing, dynamometer testing, condition monitoring, and the development and population of a gearbox failure database. At the core of the project are two 750kW gearboxes that have been redesigned and rebuilt so that they are representative of the multi-megawatt gearbox topology currently used in the industry. These gearboxes are heavily instrumented and are tested in the field and on the dynamometer. This report discusses the bearing calibrations of the gearboxes.

An estimate of the total and recoverable geopressured geothermal resource of the fairways in the Wilcox and Frio formations is made using the current data available. The flow rate of water and methane for wells located in the geopressured geothermal fairways is simulated over a 20-year period utilizing the TOUGH2 Reservoir Simulator and research data. The model incorporates relative permeability, capillary pressure, rock compressibility, and leakage from the bounding shale layers. The simulations show that permeability, porosity, pressure, sandstone thickness, well spacing, and gas saturation in the sandstone have a significant impact on the percent of energy recovered. The results also predict lower average well production flow rates and a significantly higher production of natural gas relative to water than in previous studies done from 1975 to 1980. Previous studies underestimate the amount of methane produced with hot brine. Based on the work completed in this study, multiphase flow processes and reservoir boundary conditions greatly influence the total quantity of the fluid produced as well as the ratio of gas and water in the produced fluid.