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Apropos to the announcement about DOE moving forward with funding for Smart Grid projects, NIST has unveiled a three-step approach for developing standards for such a grid. Although the DOE is the main organizer and funding source for grid-related projects, NIST has been charged with shepherding the standards that will underpin the next-generation national power system.

As I understand it, NIST’s plan is:

Goal 1: Accelerate the discussion among equipment suppliers, consumer representatives, researchers and other stakeholders to achieve consensus on Smart Grid standards. NIST says the deliverables from this step include specific grid architecture details and security and operability standards (including ramp-up standards). NIST envisions the upcoming May 19-20 grid stakeholders summit as a key event in this step.

Goal 2: Formalize stakeholder partnerships to create a forum for the development of additional standards to address remaining gaps and integrate new technologies.

Goal 3: Create a testing and certification system to enforce standards conformity for security and interoperability.

These goals look like they should easily overlap, but NIST actually refers to them as “phases.” NIST says its goal is to finish the first goal (phase) “in early fall,” and establish the stakeholder partnership and finish the testing-and-certification plan “by the end of the year.” Ultimately, NIST aims to submit the standards to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval. FERC’s acceptance is necessary because it regulates interstate distribution and sales of electric power.

Some of the obvious standards will be aimed at major equipment and end-user manufacturers, but recent revelations also emphasize the need for cybersecurity standards throughout this process.

Earlier this month, NIST announced that it had given a contract to the Electric Power Research Institute to assist in developing issues and priorities for grid standards, and aid in consensus building. EPRI is a nonprofit, utility-industry funded group focused on issues related to R&D for the generation, delivery and use of electricity. It has a good track record for developing energy roadmaps, but is squarely in the “clean coal” camp and recently raised some eyebrows when the its director of technology assessment told the New York Times that, “[solar power] just doesn’t enter our equation.”

NIST Deputy Director Patrick Gallagher said his institute is working with a sense of urgency to expedite the development of standards critical to ensuring a reliable and robust Smart Grid.”

Gallagher announced that George Arnold, deputy director of NIST’s Technology Services, will lead NIST’s Smart Grid efforts. Arnold was once a vice-president at Bell Laboratories and previously served as chairman of the board of the American National Standards Institute, a group that facilitates voluntary standardization and conformity assessment activities within the United States.

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The Obama administration seems to have decided to let others share some of the Department of Energy’s glory and let Vice President Joe Biden and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke make the official announcement that DOE is preparing to release funds to develop the “Smart Grid.” Biden and Locke said the DOE is moving to quickly distribute nearly $3.4 billion for grid technology grants and $615 million for grid storage and monitoring.

The duo also announced that some sort of grid summit meeting will be held in nation’s capital around May 19-20. Smartly, it sounds like Energy Secretary Steven Chu will use the meeting to put national media focus on the benefits an advanced energy grid, plus put the squeeze on key private sector groups to unite around a set of standards so that the nation doesn’t end up with a lot of wasted talent going into a Blu-Ray versus HD DVD-type of competition.

According to the DOE, “industry leaders at the meeting will be expected to pledge to harmonize industry standards critical to developing the smart grid, commit to a timetable to reach a standards agreement and abide by the standards devised.”

There is a direct link to the Department of Commerce in this. NIST falls under the department’s purview and NIST has already been given the responsibility to facilitate the creation of grid standards.

Obviously, the idea is to think broadly and relatively far down the technology line so that the next grid generation is fully and easily capable of integrating existing and yet-unthought-of renewable energy sources with the electrical grid, in addition to having mega- and micromanagement features for both industry and consumers.

The $3.375 billion is being paid out under the DOE’s “Smart Grid Investment Grant Program.” The department says it is willing to tailor grant sizes to $500,000 to $20 million for large-scale grid technology items. The $615 million will be doled out in cost-sharing grants of $100,000 to $5 million for grid monitoring, energy storage and regional projects, and the agency is requiring a minimum 50-50 cost share. In either case, the DOE says grant proposals will be weighed using a competitive, merit-based process.

Currently, there isn’t a lot of detail about funding priorities for the large program, however more information is available about DOE’s interests in the smaller pool of funds. According to preliminary grant information, the DOE will be looking at “regionally unique demonstrations to verify smart grid technology viability, quantify smart grid costs and benefits, and validate new smart grid business models, at a scale that can be readily adapted and replicated around the country.” Ultimately, the DOE says it wants the regional projects to “embody essential and salient characteristics of each region and present a suite of use cases for national implementation and replication.”

Funding will be limited to three types of demonstration projects:

•    Regional demonstrations (smart grid costs and benefits, technology viability and new business models);

•    Utility-scale energy storage demonstrations (advanced battery systems, ultracapacitors, flywheels and compressed air energy systems) and congestion relief;

•    Grid monitoring demonstrations (phase measurement units).

Lastly, the DOE says the projects should be collaborations among utility companies, products and services suppliers, end users and state and municipal governments.

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According to a paper published in a recent issue of Nature Nanotechnology, two researchers at Northwestern University are using atom probe tomography to do precise atom-by-atom measurements of dopants in nanowires and, likewise, use the information to build new nanowire models and better predict their electronic properties.

Lincoln Lauhon, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the school’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, is providing the atomic-level view of the composition of nanowire.

Lauhon did his working using a Local Electrode Atom Probe microscope, obtaining a 3-D map of individual atoms within the wire. “We simply mapped where all the atoms were in a single nanowire, and from the map we determined where the dopant atoms were,” he says. Quantitative dopant information is key to nanowire development because conductivity increases with an increase in dopant atoms.

Lauhon predicted this ability would unleash new engineering possibilities. Indeed, one of Lauhon’s colleague, Peter Voorhees, is already using this mapping ability to develop new approaches to synthesizing germanium nanowires with phosphorous dopants.

“If nanowires are going to be used in device applications, this model will provide guidance as to the conditions that will enable us to add these elements and control the doping concentrations,” Vorhees says.

Lauhon predicts that they will be able to establish basic principles and guidelines for doping nanowires.

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Peterbilt truck with "hotel" powered by Delphi APU fuel cell

DOE Secretary Steven Chu announced today that it would target $41.9 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for fuel cell development.

The money will be doled out to 12 companies for 14 projects in 10 states (see below). Some of the funding is to subsidize the purchase of fuel cell vehicles (by companies like FedEx and Anheuser-Busch), while other funds are earmarked for R&D projects. The companies are expected to kick in over $72 million as their share of the projects.

According to the DOE, the allocations will “improve the potential of fuel cells to provide power in stationary, portable and specialty vehicle applications, while cutting carbon emissions and broadening our nation’s clean energy technology portfolio.”

The agency says about 1,000 fuel cell systems will be installed for emergency backup power and material handling applications. DOE says PEM, SOFC and direct-methanol fuel cells will be funded.

DOE Fuel Cell Funding:

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We present an interview with Ed Herderick, the 2009-2010 Materials Societies Congressional Fellow and occasional contributor to this blog. ACerS, along with The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society and the Materials Research Society announced in March that Herderick has been selected to be the groups’ fellow. The Materials Societies Congressional Fellow program is part of a larger program administered by the AAAS.

As the Materials Society Fellow, Herderick will spend one year working as a special legislative assistant on the staff of a member of Congress or congressional committee. His activities may involve conducting legislative or oversight work, assisting in congressional hearings and debates, and preparing briefs and writing speeches. He  will also participate in a yearlong seminar series on science and public policy issues. Preparation for assuming the assignment includes a special orientation program on congressional and executive branch operation.

Herderick promises to blog or use some similar method to provide an online diary about his experiences.

Herderick will receive his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Ohio State University in August. He received his bachelor’s degree in 2005 and master’s (in materials science and engineering) in 2007 from OSU, as well.  Herderick’s graduate research, under the advisement of Nitin Padture, is focused on the synthesis, characterization, and property measurement of metal-oxide-metal heterojunction nanowires.
Herderick was an NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship fellow (2005-2008) and won Diamond-level recognition among the Graduate Excellence in Materials Science awards from ACerS (2008).

In addition to his academic work, Ed has been an active member of the campus community, serving on the OSU Council of Graduate Students for two years and also taking part in many outreach activities to bring students and teachers to campus.

His main area of policy interest is in solutions to the 21st century energy challenge; that is improving the way we generate, transmit, and consume energy to provide economic growth and strengthen national security in an environmentally sustainable manner.

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