SAI: Strengthening Energy Infrastructure Resilience and Equity During Extreme Cold Weather Events

SAI：在极端寒冷天气事件期间加强能源基础设施的弹性和公平性

• 批准号: 2324544
• 负责人: Chiara Lo Prete
• 金额: $ 75万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-15 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2324544&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SAI; Strengthening; Energy; Infrastructure; Resilience

Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI) is an NSF Program seeking to stimulate human-centered fundamental and potentially transformative research that strengthens America’s infrastructure. Effective infrastructure provides a strong foundation for socioeconomic vitality and broad quality of life improvement. Strong, reliable, and effective infrastructure spurs private-sector innovation, grows the economy, creates jobs, makes public-sector service provision more efficient, strengthens communities, promotes equal opportunity, protects the natural environment, enhances national security, and fuels American leadership. To achieve these goals requires expertise from across the science and engineering disciplines. SAI focuses on how knowledge of human reasoning and decision-making, governance, and social and cultural processes enables the building and maintenance of effective infrastructure that improves lives and society and builds on advances in technology and engineering.Electricity and heating needs spike during extreme cold weather events. Natural gas pipeline utilization approaches the maximum capacity during these periods, and power plants may not receive enough natural gas for electricity generation because gas distribution companies hold the highest priority of service. This was prudent during an era when the primary use for gas was space heating and not electricity generation. That landscape has changed, with electricity now more commonly used for heating in the residential and commercial sectors. This creates a disadvantage for customers who rely on electricity for heating because the priority for natural gas distribution is not for electricity generation. Recent electricity crises demonstrate the costly human impacts that power outages coupled with natural gas supply shortfalls can have during extreme cold weather events. Importantly, adverse consequences of cold weather outages tend to fall on historically overburdened and underserved communities. These disparities are expected to become more pronounced as residential electricity consumption grows through 2050. This SAI project investigates the complex challenges raised by the increasing interdependence between the electric power and natural gas sectors in the United States.This project develops a framework that integrates energy systems modeling, mechanism design and stakeholder engagement to improve allocation of natural gas between local distribution companies and power plants during extreme cold weather events. The integrative research approach develops models to assess damages to key components of the energy infrastructure during extreme cold weather events. The models are used to simulate the joint operations of energy infrastructure during winter storms, and assess the associated impacts on costs, emissions, and power outages at the county level in a regional test system. Potential policy solutions that enhance efficiency and equity of gas allocation during severe cold weather events are proposed and evaluated. The research is deeply integrated with a robust engagement program involving a range of key stakeholders, including energy regulators, non-profit and community-based organizations, energy companies, and electric grid operators. The research and stakeholder engagement advances the understanding of solutions to strengthen U.S. energy infrastructure resilience and promotes equitable access to this infrastructure.This award is supported by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences and the Directorate for Engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

加强美国基础设施（SAI）是一项NSF计划，旨在刺激以人为本的基本和潜在的变革性研究，从而增强美国的基础设施。有效的基础设施为社会经济活力和广泛的生活质量改善奠定了坚实的基础。强大，可靠和有效的基础设施刺激了私营部门的创新，发展经济，创造就业机会，使公共部门服务提供效率更高，增强社区，促进平等的机会，保护自然环境，增强国家安全，并为美国的领导燃料。为了实现这些目标，需要从整个科学和工程学科的专业知识。 SAI专注于对人类推理和决策，治理以及社会和文化过程的知识如何使建立和维护有效的基础设施，从而改善生活和社会，并在极端寒冷的天气事件中建立技术和工程的进步。天然气管道利用率在这些时期内的最大容量，并且由于天然气分销公司的服务优先级，发电厂可能无法获得足够的天然气来发电。在一个主要使用气体是空间加热而不是电力发电的时代，这是审慎的。景观发生了变化，现在电力更常用于居民和商业部门的供暖。这为依靠电力供暖的客户造成了灾难，因为天然气分配的优先级不是发电的。最近的电力危机表明，在极端寒冷的天气事件中，加上停电以及天然气供应不足的代价高昂的影响。重要的是，寒冷天气的不利后果往往会落在历史上过负担和服务不足的社区上。随着居民的电力消耗持续到2050年，预计这些差异将变得更加明显。该SAI项目研究了美国的电力和天然气部门之间的相互依存关系增加所带来的复杂挑战。该项目开发了一个框架，该框架将能源系统设计和机械设备设计和持续分配的工厂融合到实质性的天然天然气中，以融合了在天然天然气之间的融合，以改善天然天然气的范围。综合研究方法开发了模型，以评估极端寒冷天气事件期间能源基础设施关键组成部分的损害。这些模型用于模拟冬季风暴期间能源基础设施的共同运营，并评估区域测试系统中县级成本，排放和停电的相关影响。提出和评估了在严重寒冷的天气事件中提高气体分配效率和平等的潜在政策解决方案。这项研究与涉及一系列关键利益相关者的强大参与计划深入融合，包括能源监管机构，非营利组织和基于社区的组织，能源公司和电网运​​营商。研究和利益相关者的参与促进了对解决方案的理解，以加强美国能源基础设施的弹性并促进公平访问该基础架构。该奖项得到社会，行为和经济和经济（SBE）科学局和工程局的支持，这一奖项通过该奖项来弥补NSF的良好依据。 标准。