Will McNamara from Sandia National Laboratories gave two presentations at the EUCI Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) Best Practices Summit held virtually May 1-2, 2024, hosted by Burbank Department of Light & Power. McNamara, the Sandia Energy Storage Policy Analyst, presented and led discussion on “Parsing Which Long Duration Technologies Will Prevail” and “Assessing the Impacts on IRP of the Inflation Reduction Act.”

His Long Duration presentation explored what LDES technologies are gaining momentum on the path to commercialization and how focused efforts across the industry are aligning to address the array of market challenges that persist. While the Inflation Reduction Act presentation provided an overview of the IRA incentives and expected power market impacts on IRP best practices.

This Summit explored the new IRP paradigm and provided a critical platform to leading utility, power resource planning professionals and related industry experts as they addressed the key elements associated with emerging operational issues. The conference blended presentations from utilities, state regulatory staff/commissioners, non-utility SMEs, service providers and other resource planners.

The event also provided a conduit for McNamara to highlight Sandia’s energy storage R&D Program resources, insights on long duration energy storage, and promote DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge.

Download the EUCI Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) Best Practices Summit brochure.

Questions: Contact Will McNamara at jwmcnam@sandia.gov.

Sandia National Laboratories Energy Storage program team member Charlie Vartanian participated in the EUCI course “Energy Storge System Commissioning” held virtually April 17-18, 2024. Charlie was the lead instructor for “Installation Codes, Standards, and Regulations (CSRs) Applicable to Energy Storage System (ESS) Commissioning”. The Sandia-supported course module included content prepared by Michael Ropp (Sandia ESS Interconnection), Waylon Clark Sandia (Sandia ESS Demonstration Projects and Commissioning), and Chris Searles (Sandia ES Safety Codes and Standards).

The ESS Commissioning course provided the audience of ESS owner/operators (and all other parties involved in the commissioning effort) an excellent foundation of:

• ESS pre-commissioning requirements
• ESS commissioning stakeholders and their involvement
• ESS commissioning project plan elements and their sequence
• ESS commissioning tests
• ESS deployment and commencement of operations
• ESS recommissioning and decommissioning

EUCI provided an extremely interested and engaged audience for the Sandia Energy Storage program to deliver its R&D program resources and insights related to ESS standards and their application. Participation in this course also supported a broader Sandia and DOE OE goal to lower barriers to ESS adoption by filling gaps in ESS Standards.

Learn more about the course here.

Questions: Contact Charlie Vartanian at charlie.vartanian@ieee.org.

Dr. Atri Bera was recently honored with the Outstanding Young Engineer Award by the IEEE Albuquerque Section, recognizing his significant contributions in developing “software tools to assess the reliability and stability risks associated with high penetrations of renewable generation.” His research and tool development work has been pivotal in addressing critical challenges as the power grid transitions to incorporate a higher proportion of variable renewable energy sources.

Dr. Bera’s work as a Senior R&D Engineer at Sandia National Laboratories has notably advanced the understanding of potential reliability and stability risks posed by renewable energy integration and demonstrated how energy storage solutions can be strategically utilized to mitigate these issues. Furthermore, his research into energy storage valuation has been instrumental in reducing barriers to its broad adoption, making it easier for industry stakeholders to assess the financial benefits.

Additionally, Dr. Bera has been at the forefront of developing innovative software tools that enhance energy storage valuation and improve grid planning, thereby supporting a more resilient and efficient energy infrastructure. This award highlights Dr. Bera’s impactful work and his commitment to advancing renewable energy integration and enhancing grid reliability and stability using energy storage.

Dr. Bera earned his bachelor’s from National Institute of Technology Durgapur in India and his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, both in electrical engineering. He has authored numerous journal articles, book chapters, and reports focused on improving grid performance amidst the large-scale integration of renewable energy through the utilization of energy storage systems. He is actively engaged in a range of IEEE activities, including participation in working groups and task forces, serving in editorial roles, and organizing panels and sessions to share ongoing research in his field.

A nationally recognized leader in electrochemical energy conversion and storage at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Vince Sprenkle has been chosen to oversee the Grid Storage Launchpad (GSL), a Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) research and development facility that will open this year on PNNL’s campus in Richland, WA.

For more than a decade, Sprenkle has helped lead the effort to develop and accelerate energy storage technologies to meet the country’s clean energy goals. As director of the GSL, Sprenkle will focus on applying the facility’s cutting-edge capabilities and bringing together research collaborations to help advance grid energy storage solutions to enable the nation’s resilient, reliable, and affordable energy grid.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) today announced the selectees of $15 million in awards at the Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) Council Summit on April 8, 2024. These awards are through the Storage Innovations 2030: Technology Liftoff (SI Liftoff) funding opportunity announcement (FOA) to advance energy storage innovations to help deliver clean, affordable electricity to Americans when and where it is needed most.

OE selected three organizations (listed below) for their innovative ideas to tackle key R&D barriers in the domestic energy storage industry. Entities are awarded up to $5 million each for projects that (a) create research partnership to bring together two or more technology stakeholders, and (b) partner with a research institution to solve one or more pre-competitive R&D technical challenge. Projects must enable a long-duration capable (10+ hours) energy storage technology with a pathway to $0.05/ kWh Levelized Cost of Storage (LCOS) by 2030.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) today launched the American-Made Silicon Carbide (SiC)  Packaging Prize. This $2.25 million contest invites competitors to propose, design, build, and test state-of-the-art SiC semiconductor packaging prototypes to enable these devices to work more effectively in high-voltage environments such as energy storage. The prize is part of the American-Made Challenges program, which fosters collaboration between our nation’s entrepreneurs and innovators, DOE’s National Labs, and the private sector.

On February 26, 2024, Sandia National Laboratories staff were co-instructors for HalfMoon Education’s Distributed Energy Interconnection and Interoperability webinar. This webinar covered broader DER interconnection policy and technical standards content, plus narrower discussion specific to energy storage (ES) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G).  Sandia staff featured learning developed through Energy Storage (ES) program work within the Policy & Outreach and Safety & Reliability ES program thrust areas.

Will McNamara, Policy Analyst for the Sandia Energy Storage program, presented Trends in State-Level Policymaking. While Charlie Vartanian presented DER Interconnection Standards in Codes and Regulation, with an overview of industry activity updating IEEE 1547-2018 standard.

In supporting industry education events like this webinar, Sandia staff leverages and promotes ES program R&D products and resources. This and similar industry-facing activities also provide valuable industry feedback to inform continual refinement of ES program RD&D to best meet industry needs.

On February 19, 2024, Sandia staff were co-instructors for the tutorial “How Grid Energy Storage Meets the Challenges of a Decarbonized Future”, at the 2024 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies conference in Washington DC.  This tutorial was organized and led by the IEEE Energy Storage and Stationary Battery (ESSB) technical committee.  Sandia staff, in support of the IEEE ESSB, covered tutorial sub-topics including Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) technologies, Energy Storage (ES) economics, ES grid interconnection, and ES safety. This tutorial will be provided next at the IEEE T&D show May 6, 2024, in Anaheim CA.  A read description of that tutorial here.

In supporting IEEE ESSB, Sandia staff leverages and promotes Lab ES R&D learning and resources. The IEEE is also a productive community for technical information-exchange and socializing broader DOE initiatives including the Long Duration Storage Shot.