Publications
Application of a resilience framework to military installations: a methodology for energy resilience business case decisions
October 4, 2016
Technical Report
Published in:
MIT Lincoln Laboratory Report TR-1216
Summary
The goal of the study was to develop and demonstrate an energy resilience framework at four DoD installations. This framework, predominantly focused on developing a business case, was established for broader application across the DoD. The methodology involves gathering data from an installation on critical energy load requirements, the energy costs and usage, quantifying the cost and performance of the existing energy resilience solution at the installation, and then conducting an analysis of alternatives to look at new system designs. Improvements in data collection at the installation level, as recommended in this report, will further increase the fidelity of future analysis and the accuracy of the recommendations. And most importantly, increased collaboration between the facility personnel and the mission operators at the installation will encourage holistic solutions that improve both the life cycle costs and the resilience of the installation's energy systems and supporting infrastructure.
Summary
The goal of the study was to develop and demonstrate an energy resilience framework at four DoD installations. This framework, predominantly focused on developing a business case, was established for broader application across the DoD. The methodology involves gathering data from an installation on critical energy load requirements, the energy...
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Boston community energy study - zonal analysis for urban microgrids
April 5, 2016
Technical Report
Published in:
MIT Lincoln Laboratory Report TR-1201
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Summary
Superstorm Sandy illustrated the economic and human impact that severe weather can have on urban areas such as New York City. While flooding and wind damaged or destroyed some of the energy infrastructure, all installed microgrids in the New York City region remained operational during Sandy, including those at Princeton University, Goldman Sachs, New York University, and Co-op City. The resilience provided by these microgrids sparked renewed interest in pursuing more microgrid deployments as means to increase resiliency throughout the nation and in the face of many potential threats including severe weather events, and potentially terrorism. MIT Lincoln Laboratory has been engaged with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Energy (DoE), and the City of Boston in this Community Energy Study to explore the potential for microgrid deployment within Boston's thriving neighborhoods. Using hourly simulated building energy data for every building in Boston, provided by the Sustainable Design Lab on MIT campus, MIT Lincoln Laboratory was able to develop an approach that can identify zones within the city where microgrids could be implemented with a high return on investment in terms of resiliency, offering both cost savings and social benefit in the face of grid outages. An important part of this approach leverages a microgrid optimization tool developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with whom the MIT Lincoln Laboratory is now collaborating on microgrid modeling work. Using the microgrid optimization tool, along with building energy use data, forty-two community microgrids were identified, including ten multiuser microgrids, ten energy justice microgrids, and twenty-two emergency microgrids.
Summary
Superstorm Sandy illustrated the economic and human impact that severe weather can have on urban areas such as New York City. While flooding and wind damaged or destroyed some of the energy infrastructure, all installed microgrids in the New York City region remained operational during Sandy, including those at Princeton...
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Development of a real-time hardware-in-the-loop power systems simulation platform to evaluate commercial microgrid controllers
February 23, 2016
Technical Report
Published in:
MIT Lincoln Laboratory Report TR-1203
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This report describes the development of a real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) power system simulation platform to evaluate commercial microgrid controllers. The effort resulted in the successful demonstration of HIL simulation technology at a Technical Symposium organized by the Mass Clean Energy Center (CEC) for utility distribution system engineers, project developers, systems integrators, equipment vendors, academia, regulators, City of Boston officials, and Commonwealth officials. Actual microgrid controller hardware was integrated along with actual, commercial genset controller hardware in a particular microgrid configuration, which included dynamic loads, distributed energy resources (DERs), and conventional power sources. The end product provides the ability to quickly and cost-effectively assess the performance of different microgrid controllers as quantified by certain metrics, such as fuel consumption, power flow management precision at the point of common coupling, load-not-served (LNS) while islanded, peak-shaving kWh, and voltage stability. Additional applications include protection system testing and evaluation, distributed generation prime mover controller testing, integration and testing of distribution control systems, behavior testing and studies of DER controls, detailed power systems analysis, communications testing and integration, and implementation and evaluation of smart grid concepts. Microgrids and these additional applications promise to improve the reliability, resiliency, and efficiency of the nation's aging but critical power distribution systems. This achievement was a collaborative effort between MIT Lincoln Laboratory and industry microgrid controller manufacturers. This work was sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability.
Summary
This report describes the development of a real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) power system simulation platform to evaluate commercial microgrid controllers. The effort resulted in the successful demonstration of HIL simulation technology at a Technical Symposium organized by the Mass Clean Energy Center (CEC) for utility distribution system engineers, project developers, systems...
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Leading the charge - microgrids for domestic military installations
June 19, 2013
Journal Article
Published in:
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 4, July/August 2013, pp. 40-5.
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In today's interconnected battlefield, our war fighters are increasingly reliant on capabilities at domestic military installations to support critical missions, often in near real time. Many of the domestic installations of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) also support everything from sensitive research and development facilities such as microelectronics and biological laboratories to large industrial plants such as shipyards and aviation depots. These facilities depend on the electricity provided by the commercial electric grid. Extended-duration outages on the domestic electric grid will therefore both significantly affect the operational mission of the DoD and bring substantial economic consequences. The changing nature of electricity markets presents new opportunities for the DoD to reduce electricity costs while addressing its energy security needs. Demand response, ancillary service markets, and real-time pricing offer large consumers of electricity such as military installations a significant opportunity to use installation assets during grid-tied operation. Nevertheless, this is an opportunity the DoD can only exploit if it does so in a secure fashion, well protected from cyber threats.
Summary
In today's interconnected battlefield, our war fighters are increasingly reliant on capabilities at domestic military installations to support critical missions, often in near real time. Many of the domestic installations of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) also support everything from sensitive research and development facilities such as microelectronics and...
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Interdependence of the electricity generation system and the natural gas system and implications for energy security
May 15, 2013
Technical Report
Published in:
MIT Lincoln Laboratory Report TR-1173
Summary
Concern about energy security on domestic Department of Defense installations has led to the possibility of using natural gas-fired electricity generators to provide power in the event of electric grid failures. The natural gas system in the United States is partly dependent on electricity for its ability to deliver natural gas from the well-head to the consumer, but it also uses natural gas from the system itself to fuel some of the drilling rigs, processing units, and pipeline compressors. The vulnerability of the system to a disruption in the national electricity supply network varies depending on the cause and breadth of the disruption and where in the country one is located relative to that disruption, as the interconnected nature of transmission pipelines, the penetration of electric motor-driven compressors and other equipment, and the availability of nearby gas production, import terminals, or storage varies. In general, the gas supply system is reliable for short-term, limited-area disruptions in the electricity supply, and firm delivery contracts for natural gas increase the likelihood of continued operation, but for disruptions that cover large sections of the electric grid encompassing areas from extraction wells to customers and which last longer than available gas in storage or transmission pipeline constraints from elsewhere, contractual force majeure limits will come into play rendering the firm delivery contracts void; operation of gas-fueled power generation systems that are not dual-fuel capable for longer than weeks to a few months (depending on time of year) will be unlikely. Several weather-related outages in recent years have provided limited case studies showing the system's resilience, but no long-term, widespread electricity grid failures have occurred.
Summary
Concern about energy security on domestic Department of Defense installations has led to the possibility of using natural gas-fired electricity generators to provide power in the event of electric grid failures. The natural gas system in the United States is partly dependent on electricity for its ability to deliver natural...
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Microgrid study: energy security for DoD installations
June 18, 2012
Technical Report
Published in:
MIT Lincoln Laboratory Report TR-1164
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Growing concerns about the vulnerability of the electric grid, uncertainty about the cost of oil, and an increase in the deployment of renewable generation on domestic military installations have all led the Department of Defense (DoD) to reconsider its strategy for providing energy security for critical domestic operations. Existing solutions typically use dedicated backup generators to service each critical load. For large installations, this can result in over 50 small generators, each servicing a low voltage feeder to an individual building. The system as a whole is typically not well integrated either internally, with nearby renewable assets, or to the larger external grid. As a result, system performance is not optimized for efficient, reactive, and sustainable operations across the installation in the event of a power outage or in response to periods of high stress on the grid. Recent advances in energy management systems and power electronics provide an opportunity to interconnect multiple sources and loads into an integrated system that can then be optimized for reliability, efficiency, and/or cost. These integrated energy systems, or microgrids, are the focus of this study. The study was performed with the goals of (1) achieving a better understanding of the current microgrid efforts across DoD installations, specifically those that were in place or underway by the end of FY11, (2) categorizing the efforts with a consistent typology based on common, measurable parameters, and (3) performing cost-benefit trades for different microgrid architectures. This report summarizes the results of several months of analysis and provides insight into opportunities for increased energy security, efficiency, and the incorporation of renewable and distributed energy resources into microgrids, as well as the factors that might facilitate or impede implementation.
Summary
Growing concerns about the vulnerability of the electric grid, uncertainty about the cost of oil, and an increase in the deployment of renewable generation on domestic military installations have all led the Department of Defense (DoD) to reconsider its strategy for providing energy security for critical domestic operations. Existing solutions...
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Distributed multi-modal sensor system for searching a foliage-covered region
April 28, 2011
Conference Paper
Published in:
2011 IEEE Conf. on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA), 28 April 2011, pp. 7-14.
Summary
We designed and constructed a system that includes aircraft, ground vehicles, and throwable sensors to search a semiforested region that was partially covered by foliage. The system contained 4 radio-controlled (RC) trucks, 2 aircraft, and 30 SensorMotes (throwable sensors). We also investigated communications links, search strategies, and system architecture. Our system is designed to be low-cost, contain a variety of sensors, and distributed so that the system is robust even if individual components are lost.
Summary
We designed and constructed a system that includes aircraft, ground vehicles, and throwable sensors to search a semiforested region that was partially covered by foliage. The system contained 4 radio-controlled (RC) trucks, 2 aircraft, and 30 SensorMotes (throwable sensors). We also investigated communications links, search strategies, and system architecture. Our...
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