This is a Final Technical Report on the Research and Development completed towards the development of a Low Cost Solar Collector conducted under the DOE cost-sharing award EE-0003591. The objective of this project was to develop a new class of solar concentrators with geometries and manufacturability that could significantly reduce the fully installed cost of the solar collector field for concentrated solar thermal power plants. The goal of the project was to achieve an aggressive cost target of $170/m2, a reduction of up to 50% in the total installed cost of a solar collector field as measured against the current industry benchmark of a conventional parabolic trough. The project plan, and the detailed activities conducted under the scope of the DOE Award project addressed all major drivers that affect solar collector costs. In addition to costs, the study also focused on evaluating technical performance of new collector architectures and compared them to the performance of the industry benchmark parabolic trough. The most notable accomplishment of this DOE award was the delivery of a full-scale integrated design, manufacturing and field installation solution for a new class of solar collector architecture which has been classified as the Bi-Planar Fresnel Collector (BPFC) and …

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The Institute for Nuclear Energy Science and Technology (INEST) and the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) co-sponsored an international workshop to identify research topics important in advancing the potential use of hybrid systems with a specific focus on nuclear-renewable hybrid systems. The workshop included presentations ranging from energy challenges and research and development directions being pursued by nations to multiple options for hybrid systems. Those options include one that is being commercialized to other opportunities and analysis results quantifying them. The workshop also involved two breakout sessions--one focused on thermal energy management issues especially at unit-operation scale and the second focused on system operations issues including system controls, regulatory issues, technical and economic analysis, and market challenges. A discussion involving the full group focused on more general issues such as societal involvement and participation. Key criteria for selecting hybrid energy system projects and metrics for comparing them were also identified by the full group.

Hybrid energy systems utilize two or more energy resources as inputs to two or more physically coupled subsystems to produce one or more energy commodities as outputs. Nuclear hybrid energy systems can be used to provide load-following electrical power to match diurnal to seasonal-scale changes in power demand or to compensate for the variability of renewable wind or solar generation. To maintain economical, full rate operation of the nuclear reactor, its thermal energy available when power demand is low could be diverted into making synthetic vehicle fuels of various types. The Institute for Nuclear Energy Science and Technology (INEST) and the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) co-sponsored an international workshop to identify research topics important in advancing the potential use of hybrid systems with a specific focus on nuclear-renewable hybrid systems. The workshop included presentations ranging from energy challenges and research and development (R&D) directions being pursued by nations to multiple options for hybrid systems. Those options include one that is being commercialized to other opportunities and analysis results quantifying them. The workshop also involved two breakout sessions - one focused on thermal energy management issues especially at unit-operation scale and the second focused on system operations issues …

This analysis presents a case study in California for a large scale, standalone wind electrolysis site. This is a techno-economic analysis of the 40,000 kg/day renewable production of hydrogen and subsequent delivery by truck to a fueling station in the Los Angeles area. This quantity of hydrogen represents about 1% vehicle market penetration for a city such as Los Angeles (assuming 0.62 kg/day/vehicle and 0.69 vehicles/person) [8]. A wind site near the Mojave Desert was selected for proximity to the LA area where hydrogen refueling stations are already built.

JLab refurbished the LASS1, 1.85 m bore Solenoid, consisting of four superconducting coils to act as the principal analysis magnet for nuclear physics in the newly constructed, Hall D at Jefferson Lab. The coils, built in 1971 at Stanford Linier Accelerator Center and used a second time at the MEGA Experiment at Los Alamos, had electrical shorts and leaks to the insulating vacuum along with deteriorated superinsulation & instrumentation. Root cause diagnosis of the problems and the repair methods are described along with the measures used to qualify the vessels and piping within the Laboratory's Pressure Safety Program (mandated by 10CFR851). The extraordinary refrigerator operational methods used to utilize the obsolete cryogenic apparatus gathered for the off-line, single coil tests are described.

We present first results for lattice simulations, on a single volume, of the low-lying spectrum of an SU(3) Yang-Mills gauge theory with N{sub f} = 10 light fermions in the fundamental representation. Fits to the fermion mass dependence of various observables are found to be globally consistent with the hypothesis that this theory is within or just outside the strongly-coupled edge of the conformal window, with mass anomalous dimension {gamma}* {approx} 1 over the range of scales simulated. We stress that we cannot rule out the possibility of spontaneous chiral-symmetry breaking at scales well below our infrared cutoff. We discuss important systematic effects, including finite-volume corrections, and consider directions for future improvement.

This paper presents results from the first U.S. based data collection effort to quantify non-hardware, business process costs for PV systems at the residential and commercial scales, using a bottom-up approach. Annual expenditure and labor hour productivity data are analyzed to benchmark business process costs in the specific areas of: (1) customer acquisition; (2) permitting, inspection, and interconnection; (3) labor costs of third party financing; and (4) installation labor.

This report presents results from the first U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sponsored, bottom-up data-collection and analysis of non-hardware balance-of-system costs--often referred to as 'business process' or 'soft' costs--for residential and commercial photovoltaic (PV) systems.

This document presents an architectural framework (plan) and roadmap for the implementation of a robust Cloud Computing capability at Sandia National Laboratories. It is intended to be a living document and serve as the basis for detailed implementation plans, project proposals and strategic investment requests.

Under the SmartRegs ordinance in the city of Boulder, Colorado, all rental properties in the city must achieve an energy efficiency level comparable to a HERS Index of approximately 120 points or lower by the year 2019. The City of Boulder received a $12 million grant from the DOE's Better Buildings initiative to create and incentivize their EnergySmart Program. In this report, the Consortium for Advanced Residential Buildings (CARB) describes its work with the program, including energy audits of rental properties, developing training programs for insulators and inspectors, and conducting interviews with property owners.

This paper introduces a technique for digesting geospatial wind-speed data into areally defined -- country-level, in this case -- wind resource supply curves. We combined gridded wind-vector data for ocean areas with bathymetry maps, country exclusive economic zones, wind turbine power curves, and other datasets and relevant parameters to build supply curves that estimate a country's offshore wind resource defined by resource quality, depth, and distance-from-shore. We include a single set of supply curves -- for a particular assumption set -- and study some implications of including it in a global energy model. We also discuss the importance of downscaling gridded wind vector data to capturing the full resource potential, especially over land areas with complex terrain. This paper includes motivation and background for a statistical downscaling methodology to account for terrain effects with a low computational burden. Finally, we use this forum to sketch a framework for building synthetic electric networks to estimate transmission accessibility of renewable resource sites in remote areas.

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We performed in-situ cryogenic testing of four silicon diodes as possible candidates for field emission (FE) monitors of superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities during qualification testing and in accelerator cryo-modules. We evaluated diodes from 2 companies - from Hamamatsu corporation model S1223-01; and from OSI Optoelectronics models OSD35-LR-A, XUV-50C, and FIL-UV20. The measurements were done by placing the diodes in superfluid liquid helium near the top of a field emitting 9-cell cavity during its vertical test. For each diode, we will discuss their viability as a 2K cryogenic detector for FE mapping of SRF cavities and the directionality of S1223-01 in such environments. We will also present calibration curves between the diodes and JLab's standard radiation detector placed above the Dewar's top plate.

We performed Centrifugal Barrel Polishing (CBP) on a 1.3 GHz fine grain TESLA single cell cavity and 1.5 GHz fine grain CEBAF high gradient superconducting radio frequency (SRF) single cell cavity following a modified recipe originally developed at Fermi National Accelerator Lab (FNAL). We were able to obtain a mirror like surface similar to that obtained at FNAL, while reducing the number of CBP steps and total processing time. This paper will discuss the change in surface and subsequent cavity performance post CBP, after a 800 C bake (no pre-bake chemistry) and minimal controlled electro-polishing (10 micron). In addition to Q vs. E{sub ACC} thermometry mapping with preheating characteristics and optical inspection of the cavity after CBP will also be shown.

The stability of the SiC layer in the presence of free nitrogen will be dependent upon the operating temperatures and resulting nitrogen pressures whether it is at High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) temperatures of 1000-1400 C (coolant design dependent) or LWR temperatures that range from 500-700 C. Although nitrogen released in fissioning will form fission product nitrides, there will remain an overpressure of nitrogen of some magnitude. The nitrogen can be speculated to transport through the inner pyrolytic carbon layer and contact the SiC layer. The SiC layer may be envisioned to fail due to resulting nitridation at the elevated temperatures. However, it is believed that these issues are particularly avoided in the LWR application. Lower temperatures will result in significantly lower nitrogen pressures. Lower temperatures will also substantially reduce nitrogen diffusion rates through the layers and nitriding kinetics. Kinetics calculations were performed using an expression for nitriding silicon. In order to further address these concerns, experiments were run with surrogate fuel particles under simulated operating conditions to determine the resulting phase formation at 700 and 1400 C.

The U.S. Air Force is facing a number of challenges as it moves into the future, one of the biggest being how to provide safe and secure energy to support base operations. A team of scientists and engineers met at Mountain Home Air Force Base near Boise, Idaho, to discuss the possibility of exploring for geothermal resources under the base. The team identified that there was a reasonable potential for geothermal resources based on data from an existing well. In addition, a regional gravity map helped identify several possible locations for drilling a new well. The team identified several possible sources of funding for this well—the most logical being to use U.S. Department of Energy funds to drill the upper half of the well and U.S. Air Force funds to drill the bottom half of the well. The well was designed as a slimhole well in accordance with State of Idaho Department of Water Resources rules and regulations. Drilling operations commenced at the Mountain Home site in July of 2011 and were completed in January of 2012. Temperatures increased gradually, especially below a depth of 2000 ft. Temperatures increased more rapidly below a depth of 5500 ft. The bottom of …

The City of Stanley, Idaho (population 63) is situated in the Salmon River valley of the central Idaho highlands. Due to its location and elevation (6270 feet amsl) it is one of the coldest locales in the continental U.S., on average experiencing frost 290 days of the year as well as 60 days of below zero (oF) temperatures. Because of high snowfall (76 inches on average) and the fact that it is at the terminus of its rural grid, the city also frequently endures extended power outages during the winter. To evaluate its options for reducing heating costs and possible local power generation, the city obtained a rural development grant from the USDA and commissioned a feasibility study through author Roy Mink to determine whether a comprehensive site characterization and/or test drilling program was warranted. Geoscience students and faculty at Idaho State University (ISU), together with scientists from the Idaho Geological Survey (IGS) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) conducted three field data collection campaigns between June, 2011 and November, 2012 with the assistance of author Beckwith who arranged for food, lodging and local property access throughout the field campaigns. Some of the information collected by ISU and the IGS were …

As more wind farms are constructed in seismically active regions, earthquake loading increases in prominence for design and analysis of wind turbines. Early investigation of seismic load tended to simplify the rotor and nacelle as a lumped mass on top of the turbine tower. This simplification allowed the use of techniques developed for conventional civil structures, such as buildings, to be easily applied to wind turbines. However, interest is shifting to more detailed models that consider loads for turbine components other than the tower. These improved models offer three key capabilities in consideration of base shaking for turbines: 1) The inclusion of aerodynamics and turbine control; 2) The ability to consider component loads other than just tower loads; and 3) An improved representation of turbine response in higher modes by reducing modeling simplifications. Both experimental and numerical investigations have shown that, especially for large modern turbines, it is important to consider interaction between earthquake input, aerodynamics, and operational loads. These investigations further show that consideration of higher mode activity may be necessary in the analysis of the seismic response of turbines. Since the FAST code is already capable of considering these factors, modifications were developed that allow simulation of base …

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The study of Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) technology at Sandia National Laboratories started in the 1970's and concluded in the 1990's. These studies concentrated on the Darrieus configurations because of their high inherent efficiency, but other configurations (e.g., the Savonius turbine) were also examined. The Sandia VAWT program culminated with the design of the 34-m 'Test Bed' Darrieus VAWT. This turbine was designed and built to test various VAWT design concepts and to provide the necessary databases to validate analytical design codes and algorithms. Using the Test Bed as their starting point, FloWind Corp. developed a commercial VAWT product line with composite blades and an extended height-to-diameter ratio. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the design process and results of the Sandia 34-m VAWT Test Bed program and the FloWind prototype development program with an eye toward future offshore designs. This paper is our retrospective of the design, analysis, testing and commercial process. Special emphasis is given to those lessons learned that will aid in the development of an off-shore VAWT.

The Renewable Electricity Futures (RE Futures) Study investigated the challenges and impacts of achieving very high renewable electricity generation levels in the contiguous United States by 2050. The analysis focused on the sufficiency of the geographically diverse U.S. renewable resources to meet electricity demand over future decades, the hourly operational characteristics of the U.S. grid with high levels of variable wind and solar generation, and the potential implications of deploying high levels of renewables in the future. RE Futures focused on technical aspects of high penetration of renewable electricity; it did not focus on how to achieve such a future through policy or other measures. Given the inherent uncertainties involved with analyzing alternative long-term energy futures as well as the multiple pathways that might be taken to achieve higher levels of renewable electricity supply, RE Futures explored a range of scenarios to investigate and compare the impacts of renewable electricity penetration levels (30%-90%), future technology performance improvements, potential constraints to renewable electricity development, and future electricity demand growth assumptions. RE Futures was led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Accelergy Corporation, an advanced fuels developer with technologies exclusively licensed from ExxonMobil, undertook Subtask 3.9 to design, build, and preliminarily operate a bench-scale direct coal liquefaction (DCL) system capable of converting 45 pounds/hour of pulverized, dried coal to a liquid suitable for upgrading to fuels and/or chemicals. Fabrication and installation of the DCL system and an accompanying distillation system for off-line fractionation of raw coal liquids into 1) a naphtha�middle distillate stream for upgrading and 2) a recycle stream was completed in May 2012. Shakedown of the system was initiated in July 2012. In addition to completing fabrication of the DCL system, the project also produced a 500-milliliter sample of jet fuel derived in part from direct liquefaction of Illinois No. 6 coal, and submitted the sample to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright� Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio, for evaluation. The sample was confirmed by AFRL to be in compliance with all U.S. Air Force-prescribed alternative aviation fuel initial screening criteria.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has a need to develop and field a low-cost option for the long-term storage of a variety of radiological material. The storage option’s primary requirement is to provide both environmental and physical protection of the materials. Design criteria for this effort require a low initial cost and minimum maintenance over a 50-year design life. In 1999, Argonne National Laboratory-West was tasked with developing a dry silo storage option for the BN-350 Spent Fuel in Aktau Kazakhstan. Argon’s design consisted of a carbon steel cylinder approximately 16 ft long, 18 in. outside diameter and 0.375 in. wall thickness. The carbon steel silo was protected from corrosion by a duplex coating system consisting of zinc and epoxy. Although the study indicated that the duplex coating design would provide a design life well in excess of the required 50 years, the review board was concerned because of the novelty of the design and the lack of historical use. In 2012, NNSA tasked Idaho National Laboratory (INL) with reinvestigating the silo storage concept and development of alternative corrosion protection strategies. The 2012 study, “Silo Storage Concepts, Cathodic Protection Options Study” (INL/EST-12-26627), concludes that the option which best fits …