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，旨在促进以人为本的基础性和潜在变革性研究，加强美国的基础设施，为社会经济活力和广泛的生活质量改善提供坚实的基础。私营部门创新、发展经济、创造就业机会、提供更多公共部门服务、加强社区、促进平等机会、保护自然环境、增强国家安全并增强美国的领导力。要实现这些目标，需要来自各个领域的专业知识。 SAI 专注于人类推理和决策、治理以及社会和文化过程的知识如何能够建设和维护有效的基础设施，从而改善生活和社会，并以技术和工程的进步为基础。极端寒冷天气期间，供暖需求激增，天然气管道利用率接近最大容量，发电厂可能无法获得足够的天然气用于发电，因为天然气分配公司拥有最高的服务优先权。当天然气的主要用途是空间供暖时这种情况已经发生了变化，现在住宅和商业领域更广泛地使用电力来供暖，这给依赖电力供暖的客户带来了不利，因为天然气分配的优先事项不是发电。电力危机表明，在极端寒冷天气事件期间，停电和天然气供应短缺可能会给人类带来代价高昂的影响，重要的是，寒冷天气停电的不利后果往往会落在历史上负担过重和服务不足的社区上。随着居民用电量的增长2050。该 SAI 项目调查了美国电力和天然气部门之间日益相互依赖所带来的复杂挑战。该项目开发了一个框架，整合了能源系统建模、机制设计和利益相关者参与，以改善天然气在各部门之间的分配。综合研究方法开发了模型来评估极端寒冷天气事件期间能源基础设施关键部件的损坏，这些模型用于模拟冬季风暴期间能源基础设施的联合运行。并评估提出并评估了区域测试系统中对县级成本、排放和停电的相关影响，以提高严寒天气事件期间天然气分配的效率和公平性。这项研究和利益相关者的参与促进了对增强美国能源基础设施弹性和促进公平获取的解决方案的理解。该基础设施。该奖项由社会、行为和经济 (SBE) 科学理事会和工程理事会。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。