Publications

Results 1–25 of 152
Skip to search filters

Solar Performance Insight (Final Report)

Hansen, Clifford H.

The PV Operations and Maintenance (O&M) service industry lacks an affordable, well-documented, intuitive PV modeling and analytics tool to calculate modeled performance from actual data from multiple data acquisition systems (DAS). We envision a performance modeling and analytics platform built on open-source, extensible, community-maintained code. The key innovation is the community-driven development of pvlib python delivered through a lightweight web service to provide configurable, consistent and reproducible PV modeling for O&M providers.

More Details

2020 NEPA Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) Risk Assessment

Brunell, Sarah B.; Rechard, Robert P.; Hansen, Clifford H.; Wagner, Stephen W.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) operating repository 654 m below the surface in a thick salt formation in southeastern New Mexico. The DOE disposes transuranic (TRU) waste produced from atomic energy defense activities at the WIPP facility. A portion of the waste shipped to the WIPP facility contains TRU radionuclides co-mingled with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which fall under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This report documents the risks of PCBs co-mingled with TRU waste (hereafter designated as PCB/TRU waste) designated for disposal at the WIPP facility. This analysis is input to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) assessment by the DOE Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO) for the proposed increase of the WIPP facility disposal area to include additional waste panels (but not to increase the legislated WIPP volume). This analysis is not a compliance calculation to support a certification renewal nor does it support a planned change request (PCR) or planned change notice (PCN) to be submitted to the EPA.

More Details

Electromagnetic Pulse – Resilient Electric Grid for National Security: Research Program Executive Summary

Guttromson, Ross G.; Lawton, Craig R.; Halligan, Matthew H.; Huber, Dale L.; Flicker, Jack D.; Hoffman, Matthew J.; Bowman, Tyler B.; Campione, Salvatore; Clem, Paul G.; Fiero, Andrew F.; Hansen, Clifford H.; Llanes, Rodrigo E.; Pfeiffer, Robert A.; Pierre, Brian J.; Martin, Luis S.; Sanabria, David E.; Schiek, Richard S.; Slobodyan, Oleksiy S.; Warne, Larry K.

Sandia National Laboratories sponsored a three-year internally funded Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) effort to investigate the vulnerabilities and mitigations of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) on the electric power grid. The research was focused on understanding the vulnerabilities and potential mitigations for components and systems at the high voltage transmission level. Results from the research included a broad array of subtopics, covered in twenty-three reports and papers, and which are highlighted in this executive summary report. These subtopics include high altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) characterization, HEMP coupling analysis, system-wide effects, and mitigating technologies.

More Details

A comparison of der voltage regulation technologies using real-time simulations

Energies

Summers, Adam; Johnson, Jay; Darbali-Zamora, Rachid; Hansen, Clifford H.; Anandan, Jithendar; Showalter, Chad

Grid operators are now considering using distributed energy resources (DERs) to provide distribution voltage regulation rather than installing costly voltage regulation hardware. DER devices include multiple adjustable reactive power control functions, so grid operators have the difficult decision of selecting the best operating mode and settings for the DER. In this work, we develop a novel state estimation-based particle swarm optimization (PSO) for distribution voltage regulation using DER-reactive power setpoints and establish a methodology to validate and compare it against alternative DER control technologies (volt-VAR (VV), extremum seeking control (ESC)) in increasingly higher fidelity environments. Distribution system real-time simulations with virtualized and power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL)-interfaced DER equipment were run to evaluate the implementations and select the best voltage regulation technique. Each method improved the distribution system voltage profile; VV did not reach the global optimum but the PSO and ESC methods optimized the reactive power contributions of multiple DER devices to approach the optimal solution.

More Details

Modeling Failure of Electrical Transformers due to Effects of a HEMP Event

Hansen, Clifford H.; Catanach, Thomas A.; Glover, Austin M.; Huerta, Jose G.; Stuart, Zach W.; Guttromson, Ross G.

Understanding the effect of a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) on the equipment in the United States electrical power grid is important to national security. A present challenge to this understanding is evaluating the vulnerability of transformers to a HEMP. Evaluating vulnerability by direct testing is cost-prohibitive, due to the wide variation in transformers, their high cost, and the large number of tests required to establish vulnerability with confidence. Alternatively, material and component testing can be performed to quantify a model for transformer failure, and the model can be used to assess vulnerability of a wide variety of transformers. This project develops a model of the probability of equipment failure due to effects of a HEMP. Potential failure modes are cataloged, and a model structure is presented which can be quantified by the results of small-scale coupon tests.

More Details
Results 1–25 of 152
Results 1–25 of 152