ETA 2021 Strategic Plan - Flipbook - Page 37
on transportation patterns and energy use.
This simulation framework integrates principles
of behavior decision science and economics
to endogenously determine the people’s
interactions with new mobility technologies and
services.
Distributed Energy Resources Customer
Adoption Model (DER-CAM). DER-CAM is a
powerful, comprehensive decision support tool
that helps users find optimal distributed energy
resource (DER) investments in the context
of buildings or multi-energy microgrids. This
widely accepted and extensively peer-reviewed
model has been developed by Berkeley Lab
since 2000. It can be used to find the optimal
portfolio, sizing, placement, and dispatch of a
wide range of DERs, while co-optimizing multiple
stacked value streams that include load shifting,
peak shaving, power export agreements, or
participation in ancillary service markets.
Research Summary
The IES domain is broad and rapidly expanding.
A wide range of active research programs fall
naturally under its umbrella, including many
in the Energy Technologies Area (ETA). The
following examples highlight some ongoing
research efforts that are elements in nowformidable research programs in ETA. This
work builds upon strong ties to the ETA’s
previous initiatives in sustainable transportation,
urban building energy infrastructure, and grid
modernization.
infrastructure system planning and operation
problems, especially utilizing the high-fidelity
transportation and power system models at
a metropolitan scale. ETA is developing fast
numerical solutions for the grid-transportation
co-optimization problem at high fidelity and
scalability, leveraging the parallel simulation and
high-performance computing technologies at
Berkeley Lab to support reliable, cost-effective
planning of high-power charging infrastructures,
real-time or near real-time operations of EVs
and charging infrastructure, and analysis of
environmental impacts.
High-performance Computational Solutions
to Secure a Reliable EV-connected Grid
Future. The rapid trend of transportation
electrification leads to unprecedented electric
vehicle (EV) charging load on the power grid
systems, which may cause serious grid reliability
issues for the already-aging grid infrastructure.
EV mobility patterns further complicate the
Behavior, Energy, Autonomy, and Mobility
(BEAM) Modeling Framework. ETA
researchers developed the BEAM model for
the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Smart
Mobility program to study the energy and
environmental implications transformative
trends in vehicle sharing, electrification,
automation, micromobility, and e-commerce
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FLEXLAB®. ETA’s researchers have developed
powerful tools and new frameworks
for evaluating and implementing automated
demand response in the marketplace. FLEXLAB
offers a unique environment to evaluate
demand flexibility from components, systems,
and whole building demand flexibility strategies
and means of integrating them with other
DERs. This includes evaluating interoperability
of OpenADR-enabled devices and systems.
Current research is testing the use of OpenADR
integrating FLEXGRID’s new electric storage
and photovoltaic (PV) systems with FLEXLAB’s
building loads. FLEXLAB is also being used to
demonstrate hardware-in-the-loop simulation to
understand the demand flexibility capabilities of
various building systems.
Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs).
GEBs are energy-efficient buildings with smart,
connected technologies characterized by the
active use of DERs to optimize energy use for
grid services, occupant needs and preferences,
and cost reductions in a continuous and
integrated way. In doing so, GEBs can play a
key role in promoting greater affordability,
resilience, environmental performance, and
reliability across the U.S. electric power system.
Over the next two decades, national adoption of
GEBs would conservatively save the U.S. electric
power system between $100 billion and $200
billion. In addition, by reducing and shifting the
timing of electricity consumption, GEBs could
decrease carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by
80 million tons per year by 2030, or 6% of total
power sector CO2 emissions.
CalFlexHub. In the CalFlexHub, with the
support of the California Energy Commission
and DOE’s Building Technologies Office
(BTO), Berkeley Lab has assembled a team of
leading industry partners, local demonstration
sites, and community-based organizations,
academic researchers, and utility partners.
This broad team will design and demonstrate
a standardized electric price and greenhouse
gas (GHG) signal and demonstrate its ability
to reach 99% of households and business in
California, bringing the GEB vision and the goal
of connected communities closer to reality.
CalFlexHub has 12 technology research and
demonstration projects to improve the ability of
buildings to respond to dynamic prices. As we
ramp up interoperability and connectedness,
vulnerabilities present themselves. To optimize
benefits, understand and properly value costs,
and mitigate risk, new underpinning analytical
frameworks must emerge.
Visualizing Grid Instability. The electric grid
has incipient instabilities that are known or
suspected, but not easily measured. These
include reduced system inertia, vulnerability
to forced oscillations, and adverse interactions
from inverter controls. Grids are also vulnerable
to time-synchronized dispersed load changes.
ETA research is developing a new type of probe
to provide visibility of grid frequency response
behavior, to help mitigate the risk of blackouts
and support intelligent decision-making for
critical infrastructure.
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