Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES)

Introduction

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), is dedicated to transforming energy through research, development, commercialization, and deployment of renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies. NREL’s mission is to advance the science and engineering of energy-efficiency, sustainable transportation, and renewable power technologies. NREL does this by providing the knowledge to integrate and optimize energy systems.

Innovations in energy supply, storage, and efficiency technologies are catalyzing change in the nation’s electricity and end-use sectors. Addressing the challenges of designing and constructing future energy systems requires understanding the basic principles of operating large-scale energy systems that integrate multiple generation and storage technologies and solve the complex problem of controlling the interactions among hundreds of millions of connected and distributed assets.

Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) has been designed to address the challenges associated with integrating large-scale energy systems into the broader electric power system. ARIES combines the capabilities at the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) with integrated energy system facilities located on NREL’s Flatirons Campus. This new and innovative capability will support system research that enables designing and operating energy systems that are affordable, reliable, and secure and lead to increased energy resilience.

The actions we take to modernize and adapt must address the fundamental challenges of:

• Variability in the physical size of new energy technologies being added to energy systems

• Controlling large numbers (millions to tens of millions) of interconnected devices

• Integrating multiple diverse technologies that have not previously worked together.

Although these challenges are significant, they also create enormous potential. With the visionary ARIES research platform, NREL will show how current challenges become future solutions.

NREL issues an annual user call to internal (NREL) and external (non-NREL) researchers to identify projects that require ARIES capabilities and laboratory resources for the upcoming fiscal year. Most laboratory resources are allocated on this annual cycle, and project submissions will address the research priorities listed in the following section.

The successful applicant will propose a research project that addresses DOE and NREL goals and objectives, addresses the ESIF’s key research areas, and aligns with DOE’s Grid Modernization Initiative (GMI). The GMI works across DOE to create the modern grid of the future. Additional DOE program goals are described on the EERE website under the categories of Efficiency, Renewables, and Transportation.