A Decade of ESIF Innovation, the R&D 100 Awards, and the Benefits of Closed-Loop Pumped Storage Hydropower

Hosts Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle discuss three recent stories from NREL:    

• 10 Years of Leading Energy Systems Integration: As more renewables add to our energy mix, the grid is changing—and sectors that once were siloed are now interconnecting with one another. The Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) is a research facility designed to provide a space for NREL to validate these new technologies and how they are all working together. The building and its staff recently celebrated its first decade of moving clean energy innovations forward.  
• R&D 100 Awards Honor NREL Innovations: Considered the Oscars of innovation, R&D World magazine presented NREL with two of its annual R&D 100 Awards for research innovations. The winning NREL technologies are the Renewable Energy Potential (reV) model and the Simulation and Emulation for Advanced Systems (SEAS) software. This year’s winners bring NREL’s total R&D 100 Award count to 74 since 1982.  
• NREL Analysis Reveals Benefits of Hydropower for Grid-Scale Energy Storage: A recently published NREL study found that closed-loop pumped storage hydropower systems rank as having the lowest potential to add to the problem of global warming for energy storage when accounting for the full impacts of materials and construction.   

This episode was hosted by Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle, written and produced by Allison Montroy and Kaitlyn Stottler, and edited by James Wilcox, Joe DelNero, and Brittany Falch. Graphics are by Brittnee Gayet. Our title music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino of Drift BC. Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast is created by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. Email us at podcast@nrel.gov. Follow NREL on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, and Facebook.

Transcript

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Kerrin: Welcome to Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast, brought to you by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. We’re highlighting the latest in clean energy research happening at the lab. It’s Wednesday, September 6. I’m Kerrin Jeromin.

Taylor: And I’m Taylor Mankle. Kerrin, we have a ton to cover today. 

Kerrin: As usual, there’s so much happening at the lab! But for today’s episode, let’s focus on some of NREL’s recent celebrations, award winning technologies, and maybe finish it off with some closed-loop pumped storage hydropower innovations? How does that sound?

Taylor: I love it! Let’s jump right in. 

Kerrin:  One of the big events recently was a 10-year celebration of the ESIF. If you are a regular listener of this podcast, you’ve probably heard that acronym before.

Taylor: Right. The ESIF is a building, but more than that, it’s a living laboratory that has been the proving ground for clean energy technologies. Over the last decade, the Energy Systems Integration Facility, or ESIF, and its staff have moved clean energy innovations forward. 

Ben Kroposki: Looking into the future is really bright for ESIF, because as we progress deploying more of these new innovative technologies, we're going to see more challenges with integrating them at a systems level. And that's really what ESIF's big focus has always been, is understanding the deployment of new technologies, but at a systems level, so that we can create a clean energy future. 

Kerrin: That was Ben Kroposki, who is the director of the Power Systems Engineering Center and has been with NREL for 30 years. 

Taylor: 30 years?!

Kerrin: It’s amazing, right? What an incredible amount of institutional knowledge. And, like he was saying, the ESIF is specifically built to address these system level integrations. It’s right there in the name, Taylor. 

Taylor: It absolutely is—but let’s explain that term, energy systems integration, a little bit more: As more renewables add to our energy mix, the grid is changing … and sectors that once were siloed are now interconnecting with one another. The ESIF is a research facility designed to provide a space for us to validate these new technologies and how they all are working together. We aim to answer the question of, how do all of these factors come into play at a system level? 

Kerrin: Right! and the ESIF lets us evaluate that in a near real-world environment. So, when things leave the ESIF, they are as ready as they can be to go out into the world. In the last 10 years, a lot of technologies— and a lot of partners— have come through the ESIF doors. Martha Symko-Davies, an NREL lab program manager who focuses on partnerships, described the ESIF as a place to get answers to difficult questions. 

Martha Symko-Davies: How do we help utilities? How do we help the industry of the future? Academia? Federal agencies? How do they all come together with this Department of Energy facility is what the ESIF does. It answers those ‘what if’ questions, it takes from the design all the way through deployment. 

Taylor: It would be impossible for us to talk about all the achievements from the ESIF, but you can check out nrel.gov to read a fantastic article about 10 innovations from the first decade of the facility. 

Kerrin: Let me give just a little teaser, a little snippet, a tidbit if you will of one of these achievements—because, after all, this is a short podcast episode. We can’t cover it all. 

Taylor: A bite-sized episode, really. At least for now... 

Kerrin: At least for now. I see you hinting! Hint, hint, listeners—there’s more to come with the future of the NREL Podcast! But standby for that one; we’ll talk about that later. Anyway, getting back to it. I want to talk about grid-edge work. I didn’t quite understand this term at first, but now I do. The grid-edge is the point where we connect to the network, or where electricity reaches our homes and businesses. The ESIF is a space for exploratory projects related to the edge of the grid. It’s a hard thing to test in the real world. 

Taylor:  That’s right. And over time, the ESIF created a space with leading hardware for microgrid control, a test bed for utilities to modernize their distribution systems, and inventive controls for real-time device optimization. These allowed the ESIF to export its unique solutions to remote corners of the country with nationally scalable demonstrations. 

Kerrin: The technology and facility give researchers a testing ground to figure out the problems and solutions at the grid-edge in a controlled environment—and then share that with the world. I could go on and talk about how grid-edge research from the ESIF is developing net-zero affordable housing, microgrids for military outposts, and the autonomous control of devices, but we’d have to spend a few days in this soundbooth. 

Taylor: That’s right. And it is important work, but it is also a lot of information. And also, I want to talk about the Oscars. 

Kerrin: The Oscars? Is that now, is it this time of year? I never quite pegged you for an awards buff, but sure let’s talk about the Oscars.

Taylor: The Oscars of Innovation, Kerrin. The R-and-D 100 Awards. 

Kerrin: Oh man, I thought we were pivoting to a pop culture podcast. I was about to get my popcorn and talk all about red carpet looks, which I would have loved. But quite frankly the R&D 100 Awards, as in research and development, is very cool, too, so let’s go! 

Taylor:  Standby with the wrap up music just in case Kerrin ... the annual awards honor the 100 most innovative technologies of the past year and are chosen by an independent panel of judges for the R&D World magazine. The R&D 100 Awards are about the highest honor in the research world and NREL teams won two this year. Bringing our lab total to 74. 

Kerrin: That is awesome!  

Taylor: Love to see it. And the two winners this year are so impactful. First, let’s talk about the reV Model. The Renewable Energy Potential, or reV, model produces best-in-class estimates of renewable energy capacity, generation, and cost based on how data linked to a particular location intersects with grid infrastructure and land-use characteristics. 

Madeline Geocaris: ReV finds the areas where the wind blows the most. Next, it figures out where not to build your wind farm by considering how the land is used. ReV adds roads and railways, houses and buildings, lakes and streams, wildlife areas, topography of the land, community preferences for renewable energy, and regulations. Now we know where to build your wind farm. But let's figure out exactly how to arrange your turbines. 

Taylor: What you heard there was a high-level view of what the reV model can do for those looking to develop wind energy projects. The reV model also supports solar photovoltaics and concentrating solar power. reV can model a single site all the way up to an entire continent for every five minutes up to every hour over one year or multiple decades.

Kerrin: That’s mind blowing. It really is. The model first calculates wind and solar generation potential for a single site based on the local atmospheric conditions, economics, regulatory environment, and technological limitations. Then, what makes reV unique is that it scales the site-level detail across millions of potential sites. No other tool provides the same level of detail at such large scales.

Taylor: And that capability is essential for people planning the grid. reV can help identify the locations to maximize the value of renewable generation and minimize the impact to the local environment. It also helps policymakers determine how much wind and solar can and cannot be generated to decarbonize our energy system. And, because reV simulates potential future deployments that are grounded in real-world conditions ... energy modelers, engineers, land-use experts, ecologists, and more use the tool to weigh trade-offs of building wind or solar in each location. 

Kerrin: Our other Oscar winner if you will, is the Simulation and Emulation for Advanced Systems software. You know there’s an acronym for this one: It’s called SEAS. How much time do we spend explaining acronyms, Taylor?

Taylor: If this podcast is good for anything, it’s good for breaking down acronyms. Before utilities, local governments, and energy planners invest millions of dollars in infrastructure, software, and hardware, they need to understand the potential for different grid scenarios and validate operational strategies to mitigate risk across multiple sectors. That’s where SEAS comes in.

Kerrin: Yeah, SEAS collects millions of data points to generate an interactive 3-D representation of an energy system. SEAS can model future scenarios that include all possible energy resources across all energy sectors.

Taylor: That’s amazing. SEAS aims to take the guesswork out of the energy transition. And it helps even in the most extreme conditions—like in Alaska, for instance. John Burns is CEO of a local utility in Alaska that serves Fairbanks and other interior Alaska communities. He said that this tool lets him make a plan for the future. 

John Burns: Small communities like ours, for example, we really don't have the capacity to look at things from a much broader perspective. We're at a pivotal crossroads. It's where do we go from here? NREL provides us the additional engineering and analytic tools that help us to evaluate what is, you know, how do we integrate, how do we integrate large scale wind, how do we integrate the batteries. They looked at our generation portfolio and they came up with five strategic plans. It'll allow us to diversification generation. It helps us with cost, and it helps us with emissions.

Kerrin: That’s amazing stuff right there. I like that both of these winners, reV and SEAS, are helping us move through the energy transition more confidently. 

Taylor: Definitely! Glad we could metaphorically roll out the red carpet for these teams!

Kerrin: Well deserved. 

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Kerrin: Taylor, I’m really excited about this next story because I know this is your area of expertise! 

Taylor: It is! When not hosting the podcast, I work with our water power researchers, and NREL just released a press release on closed-loop pumped storage hydropower.

Kerrin: Yeah, it’s a bit of a mouthful but the study found that closed-loop pumped storage hydropower systems rank as having the lowest potential to add to the problem of global warming for energy storage when accounting for the full impacts of materials and construction.

Taylor: The research provides previously unknown insight into how closed-loop pumped storage hydropower compares to other grid-scale storage technologies. I’ll explain, briefly, because it’s already been a real tech heavy episode…

Kerrin: Yes, please explain.

Taylor: That’s a relief. So, pumped storage hydropower works with two water reservoirs at different elevations. As the water moves down from the upper reservoir to the lower, it passes through a turbine creating energy. The system can also pump water back up to the upper reservoir when energy demands are low and repeat the process. It acts similarly to a giant battery because it can store power and then release it when needed. 

Kerrin: As I understand, it’s been around a long time. The first known use cases of pumped storage hydropower were found in Italy and Switzerland in the 1890s. 

Taylor: Not only does it date back then, it also currently accounts for 93% of all utility-scale energy storage in the United States and according to the study has the lowest life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions compared to other energy storage options. The closed-loop part of this process refers to the water reservoirs not being connected to an outside body of water.   

Kerrin: Got it. It’s a huge part of our energy storage system and closed-loop is the smallest emitter of greenhouse gases? Sounds like a win-win-win all around!

Taylor: It’ll be a critical piece to our clean energy future, which makes the work happening here at NREL even more important! Now, before we encounter any more acronyms on this episode, I think that’ll do it for this episode of Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast! 

Kerrin: Nice try, NREL’s an acronym though. T-Y-S-M everyone! Kidding … Thank you so much for listening. And hey why not give us a positive review on your favorite podcast player! Or reach out to us directly at podcast@nrel.gov. We’ll be back in two weeks with more news from the lab.

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Taylor: This episode was adapted from NREL articles from August 2023 authored by Connor O’Neil, Moriah Petty, Wayne Hicks, David Glickson, and special thanks to Madeline Geocaris and Brooke Van Zandt. Our theme music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino, of Drift B-C. This podcast is produced by NREL’s Communications Office and recorded at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. We recognize and pay respect to the Indigenous peoples from our past, present, and future, and are grateful to those who have and continue to be stewards of this land.  

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