Notice of Request for Information (RFI) on Prediction of Solar Variability for Better Grid Integration, 6148-6149 [2020-02123]

Download as PDF khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with NOTICES 6148 Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 23 / Tuesday, February 4, 2020 / Notices Commonwealth of Puerto Rico affected by the recent earthquakes, for which the President has issued a disaster declaration. The Secretary takes this action to allow these eligible applicants additional time to submit their applications. This notice also waives the electronic application submission requirement for these eligible applicants. DATES: Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: February 18, 2020. Deadline for Intergovernmental Review: April 10, 2020. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Lavelle Wright, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 268–24, Washington, DC 20202– 4260. Telephone: (202) 453–7739. Email: Lavelle.wright@ed.gov. If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) or a text telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay Service (FRS), toll free, at 1–800–877– 8339. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On December 17, 2019 we published in the Federal Register a notice inviting applications for new awards for the FY 2020 SSS Program competition (84 FR 68915). This notice reopens the period for transmittal of applications for all SSS Program applicants that are located in the designated counties of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, for which the President has issued a disaster declaration. Eligibility: The extension of the application deadline date in this notice applies to eligible applicants under the SSS Program, CFDA number 84.042A, that are located in an area for which the President has issued a disaster declaration (see www.fema.gov/ disasters/) in Puerto Rico (FEMA Disaster designation 4473). In accordance with the NIA, eligible applicants for this grant competition are IHEs or combinations of IHEs. Note that because ‘‘combinations of IHEs’’ are eligible grant applicants for the SSS Program, the extension of the application deadline date applies if any member of the IHE partnership is located in the designated counties of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, for which the President has issued a disaster declaration. All IHEs eligible for the deadline extension must submit an application electronically via Grants.gov or via paper to the program contact person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT by 11:59:59 p.m., Eastern time on February 10, 2020. Note: All information in the original notice inviting applications remains the VerDate Sep<11>2014 17:48 Feb 03, 2020 Jkt 250001 same, except for the deadline for the transmittal of applications and the waiver of the electronic application submission requirement for eligible applicants, as well as the deadline for intergovernmental review. Program Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1070a– 11 and 20 U.S.C. 1070a–14. Accessible Format: Individuals with disabilities can obtain this document and a copy of the application package in an accessible format (e.g., braille, large print, audiotape, or compact disc) on request to the program contact person listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT. Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this document is the document published in the Federal Register. You may access the official edition of the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations at www.govinfo.gov. At this site you can view this document, as well as all other documents of this Department published in the Federal Register, in text or Portable Document Format (PDF). To use PDF, you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free at the site. You may also access documents of the Department published in the Federal Register by using the article search feature at: www.federalregister.gov. Specifically, through the advanced search feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published by the Department. Robert L. King, Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education. [FR Doc. 2020–02102 Filed 2–3–20; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4000–01–P DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Notice of Request for Information (RFI) on Prediction of Solar Variability for Better Grid Integration Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy (DOE). ACTION: Request for information (RFI). AGENCY: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) is issuing this request for information (RFI) to solicit feedback from industry, academia, research laboratories, government agencies, and other stakeholders. This RFI will inform SETO’s strategic planning on research related to the integration of solar energy resources. Specifically, this RFI will inform SETO’s strategies relating to SUMMARY: PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 prediction of solar irradiance reaching the surface of the earth, and power output from solar generation plants, using either photovoltaic (PV) or concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies. Improving solar generation prediction will better inform grid operators as they consider the impacts of solar power variability on grid planning and operations technologies, as well as the owners and operators of utility-scale plants and aggregators of distributed PV systems. SETO will accept response to the RFI for at least 30 days after February 4, 2020, the date this notice is published. DATES: Interested parties are to submit comments electronically to: SETO.RFI.SI@ee.doe.gov. Include Prediction of Solar Variability for Better Grid Integration, in the subject of the title. Only electronic responses will be accepted. The complete RFI document DE–FOA–0002284 is located at https:// eere-exchange.energy.gov. ADDRESSES: FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Questions may be addressed to Mr. Tassos Golnas at telephone (202) 287– 1793 or by email SETO.RFI.SI@ ee.doe.gov. Further instructions can be found in the RFI document posted on EERE Exchange. SETO’s systems integration research focuses on enabling effective grid operations with increasing amounts of solar energy and improving system resilience. Topics include dynamic PV inverter models and adaptive distribution protection; grid services from integrating solar with energy storage and other technologies; advanced inverter controls and sensors; and standardized interconnection, interoperability, and cybersecurity for PV. The goal is to advance the understanding and technologies needed to integrate increasing amounts of solar generation into electric transmission and distribution systems in a costeffective, secure, resilient, and reliable manner. SETO’s recent R&D funding includes, but is not limited to, the SETO FY2019 Funding Opportunity,1 and the Advanced Systems Integration for Solar Technologies (ASSIST),2 Solar Forecasting 2,3 and Enabling Extreme Real-Time Grid Integration of Solar SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 1 https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/fundingopportunity-announcement-solar-energytechnologies-office-fiscal-year-2019. 2 https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/fundingopportunity-announcement-advanced-systemsintegration-solar-technologies-assist. 3 https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/fundingopportunity-announcement-solar-forecasting-2. E:\FR\FM\04FEN1.SGM 04FEN1 Federal Register / Vol. 85, No. 23 / Tuesday, February 4, 2020 / Notices khammond on DSKJM1Z7X2PROD with NOTICES Energy (ENERGISE) 4 funding opportunities. SETO has supported solar prediction technologies in its Solar Forecasting funding program, launched in 2013, which delivered WRF-Solar 5—a version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model 6 that is optimized for solar irradiance, and more recently in the Solar Forecasting 2 funding program, launched in 2018. This latter program prioritizes improvements in the prediction of solar irradiance for horizons between 3 and 48 hours ahead, the successful integration of probabilistic solar power forecasts with generation unit scheduling, and the creation of an open-source framework for the efficient and transparent evaluation of irradiance and power forecast models. SETO hosted a workshop on October 7–8, 2019, in Washington, DC to review the progress of projects awarded under the Solar Forecasting 2 funding program and to better understand the remaining challenges associated with the variability and prediction uncertainty of solar generation. At the event, subject matter experts and SETO-funded researchers presented on the state-ofthe-art of solar irradiance forecasting, opportunities for the integration of hybrid systems with solar plants in the bulk power system, and efforts associated with the DOE-funded projects. These efforts work to improve the WRF-Solar model, use machine learning and other artificial intelligence methods to better predict irradiance under variable cloud cover and during ramps, and calculate the optimal amount of generation reserves using probabilistic solar power forecasts. An extended session was dedicated to the demonstration of the current state of Solar Forecast Arbiter,7 which is an open-source platform designed to facilitate objective, transparent, and auditable evaluation of irradiance and power forecasts. The participants openly discussed emerging challenges regarding the prediction of solar irradiance and power in a world with increasing solar and renewable penetration, and an increasing population of behind-the-meter variable loads. The detailed workshop agenda and presentations are available on the SETO website.8 4 https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/fundingopportunity-announcement-enabling-extreme-realtime-grid-integration-solar-energy. 5 https://ral.ucar.edu/projects/wrf-solar. 6 https://www.mmm.ucar.edu/weather-researchand-forecasting-model. 7 https://SolarForecastArbiter.org. 8 https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/downloads/ solar-forecasting-2-workshop. VerDate Sep<11>2014 17:48 Feb 03, 2020 Jkt 250001 In this RFI, SETO is seeking additional feedback on these topics from industry, electric utilities, balancing authorities, academia, research laboratories, government agencies, and other stakeholders. The main goal is to lower the integration cost of high penetrations of solar power to the bulk power and distribution systems by making the prediction of solar generation more accurate and effective. Such a development could be realized by leveraging advances in ground and remote sensing, numerical modeling of atmospheric processes, artificial intelligence techniques, and stochastic optimization. The questions are given as follows and responders are welcome to answer all or any subset of the questions. Confidential Business Information Pursuant to 10 CFR 1004.11, any person submitting information that he or she believes to be confidential and exempt by law from public disclosure should submit via email two well marked copies: One copy of the document marked ‘‘confidential’’ including all the information believed to be confidential, and one copy of the document marked ‘‘non-confidential’’ with the information believed to be confidential deleted. DOE will make its own determination about the confidential status of the information and treat it according to its determination. Signed in Washington, DC, on January 27, 2020. Rebecca Jones-Albertus, Director, Solar Energy Technologies Office. [FR Doc. 2020–02123 Filed 2–3–20; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450–01–P DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Combined Notice of Filings #1 Take notice that the Commission received the following electric corporate filings: Docket Numbers: EC20–29–000. Applicants: Northeast Energy Associates, A Limited Partnership, North Jersey Energy Associates, A Limited Partnership, Vistra Energy Corp., NextEra Energy, Inc. Description: Errata to January 7, 2020 Application for Authorization Under Section 203 of the Federal Power Act, et al. of Northeast Energy Associates, A Limited Partnership, et al. Filed Date: 1/28/20. Accession Number: 20200128–5202. PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 4703 Sfmt 4703 6149 Comments Due: 5 p.m. ET 2/11/20. Take notice that the Commission received the following exempt wholesale generator filings: Docket Numbers: EG20–71–000. Applicants: Blooming Grove Wind Energy Center LLC. Description: Notice of SelfCertification of Exempt Wholesale Generator Status of Blooming Grove Wind Energy Center LLC. Filed Date: 1/29/20. Accession Number: 20200129–5053. Comments Due: 5 p.m. ET 2/19/20. Take notice that the Commission received the following electric rate filings: Docket Numbers: ER10–1910–019; ER10–1911–019. Applicants: Duquesne Light Company, Duquesne Power, LLC. Description: Notice of Change in Status of the Duquesne MBR Sellers. Filed Date: 1/28/20. Accession Number: 20200128–5191. Comments Due: 5 p.m. ET 2/18/20. Docket Numbers: ER12–162–027; ER11–2044–032; ER11–3876–023. ER13–1266–028; ER15–2211–025; ER18–1419–001. Applicants: MidAmerican Energy Company, Bishop Hill Energy II LLC, CalEnergy, LLC, Cordova Energy Company LLC, MidAmerican Energy Services, LLC, Walnut Ridge Wind, LLC. Description: Notice of Non-Material Change in Status of the Berkshire Hathaway Filing Parties. Filed Date: 1/28/20. Accession Number: 20200128–5198. Comments Due: 5 p.m. ET 2/18/20. Docket Numbers: ER16–902–005. Applicants: Voyager Wind I, LLC. Description: Notice of Non-Material Change in Status of Voyager Wind I, LLC. Filed Date: 1/29/20. Accession Number: 20200129–5097. Comments Due: 5 p.m. ET 2/19/20. Docket Numbers: ER19–1073–002; ER10–2460–015; ER10–2461–016; ER10–2463–015; ER10–2466–016; ER10–2917–019; ER10–2918–020; ER10–2920–019; ER10–2921–019; ER10–2922–019; ER10–2966–019; ER10–3167–011; ER11–2201–019; ER11–2383–014; ER11–3941–017; ER11–3942–020; ER11–4029–015; ER12–1311–015; ER12–161–019; ER12– 2068–015; ER12–645–020; ER12–682– 016; ER13–1139–019; ER13–1346–011; ER13–1613–012; ER13–17–013; ER13– 203–011; ER13–2143–012; ER14–1964– 010; ER14–25–015; ER14–2630–012; ER16–287–005; ER17–482–004; ER19– 1074–002; ER19–1075–002; ER19–1076– 002; ER19–2429–001; ER19–529–002. E:\FR\FM\04FEN1.SGM 04FEN1

Agencies

[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 4, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6148-6149]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-02123]


=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY


Notice of Request for Information (RFI) on Prediction of Solar 
Variability for Better Grid Integration

AGENCY: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of 
Energy (DOE).

ACTION: Request for information (RFI).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies 
Office (SETO) is issuing this request for information (RFI) to solicit 
feedback from industry, academia, research laboratories, government 
agencies, and other stakeholders. This RFI will inform SETO's strategic 
planning on research related to the integration of solar energy 
resources. Specifically, this RFI will inform SETO's strategies 
relating to prediction of solar irradiance reaching the surface of the 
earth, and power output from solar generation plants, using either 
photovoltaic (PV) or concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies. 
Improving solar generation prediction will better inform grid operators 
as they consider the impacts of solar power variability on grid 
planning and operations technologies, as well as the owners and 
operators of utility-scale plants and aggregators of distributed PV 
systems.

DATES: SETO will accept response to the RFI for at least 30 days after 
February 4, 2020, the date this notice is published.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties are to submit comments electronically to: 
[email protected]. Include Prediction of Solar Variability for 
Better Grid Integration, in the subject of the title. Only electronic 
responses will be accepted. The complete RFI document DE-FOA-0002284 is 
located at https://eere-exchange.energy.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Questions may be addressed to Mr. 
Tassos Golnas at telephone (202) 287-1793 or by email 
[email protected]. Further instructions can be found in the RFI 
document posted on EERE Exchange.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: SETO's systems integration research focuses 
on enabling effective grid operations with increasing amounts of solar 
energy and improving system resilience. Topics include dynamic PV 
inverter models and adaptive distribution protection; grid services 
from integrating solar with energy storage and other technologies; 
advanced inverter controls and sensors; and standardized 
interconnection, interoperability, and cybersecurity for PV. The goal 
is to advance the understanding and technologies needed to integrate 
increasing amounts of solar generation into electric transmission and 
distribution systems in a cost-effective, secure, resilient, and 
reliable manner. SETO's recent R&D funding includes, but is not limited 
to, the SETO FY2019 Funding Opportunity,\1\ and the Advanced Systems 
Integration for Solar Technologies (ASSIST),\2\ Solar Forecasting 2,\3\ 
and Enabling Extreme Real-Time Grid Integration of Solar

[[Page 6149]]

Energy (ENERGISE) \4\ funding opportunities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/funding-opportunity-announcement-solar-energy-technologies-office-fiscal-year-2019.
    \2\ https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/funding-opportunity-announcement-advanced-systems-integration-solar-technologies-assist.
    \3\ https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/funding-opportunity-announcement-solar-forecasting-2.
    \4\ https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/funding-opportunity-announcement-enabling-extreme-real-time-grid-integration-solar-energy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    SETO has supported solar prediction technologies in its Solar 
Forecasting funding program, launched in 2013, which delivered WRF-
Solar \5\--a version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) 
model \6\ that is optimized for solar irradiance, and more recently in 
the Solar Forecasting 2 funding program, launched in 2018. This latter 
program prioritizes improvements in the prediction of solar irradiance 
for horizons between 3 and 48 hours ahead, the successful integration 
of probabilistic solar power forecasts with generation unit scheduling, 
and the creation of an open-source framework for the efficient and 
transparent evaluation of irradiance and power forecast models.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \5\ https://ral.ucar.edu/projects/wrf-solar.
    \6\ https://www.mmm.ucar.edu/weather-research-and-forecasting-model.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    SETO hosted a workshop on October 7-8, 2019, in Washington, DC to 
review the progress of projects awarded under the Solar Forecasting 2 
funding program and to better understand the remaining challenges 
associated with the variability and prediction uncertainty of solar 
generation. At the event, subject matter experts and SETO-funded 
researchers presented on the state-of-the-art of solar irradiance 
forecasting, opportunities for the integration of hybrid systems with 
solar plants in the bulk power system, and efforts associated with the 
DOE-funded projects. These efforts work to improve the WRF-Solar model, 
use machine learning and other artificial intelligence methods to 
better predict irradiance under variable cloud cover and during ramps, 
and calculate the optimal amount of generation reserves using 
probabilistic solar power forecasts. An extended session was dedicated 
to the demonstration of the current state of Solar Forecast Arbiter,\7\ 
which is an open-source platform designed to facilitate objective, 
transparent, and auditable evaluation of irradiance and power 
forecasts. The participants openly discussed emerging challenges 
regarding the prediction of solar irradiance and power in a world with 
increasing solar and renewable penetration, and an increasing 
population of behind-the-meter variable loads. The detailed workshop 
agenda and presentations are available on the SETO website.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \7\ https://SolarForecastArbiter.org.
    \8\ https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/downloads/solar-forecasting-2-workshop.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In this RFI, SETO is seeking additional feedback on these topics 
from industry, electric utilities, balancing authorities, academia, 
research laboratories, government agencies, and other stakeholders. The 
main goal is to lower the integration cost of high penetrations of 
solar power to the bulk power and distribution systems by making the 
prediction of solar generation more accurate and effective. Such a 
development could be realized by leveraging advances in ground and 
remote sensing, numerical modeling of atmospheric processes, artificial 
intelligence techniques, and stochastic optimization. The questions are 
given as follows and responders are welcome to answer all or any subset 
of the questions.

Confidential Business Information

    Pursuant to 10 CFR 1004.11, any person submitting information that 
he or she believes to be confidential and exempt by law from public 
disclosure should submit via email two well marked copies: One copy of 
the document marked ``confidential'' including all the information 
believed to be confidential, and one copy of the document marked ``non-
confidential'' with the information believed to be confidential 
deleted. DOE will make its own determination about the confidential 
status of the information and treat it according to its determination.

    Signed in Washington, DC, on January 27, 2020.
Rebecca Jones-Albertus,
Director, Solar Energy Technologies Office.
[FR Doc. 2020-02123 Filed 2-3-20; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.