To meet our nation’s strategic energy objectives of a secure, competitive, and environmentally responsible energy system, broad deployment of a range of advanced energy technologies will be needed. By approaching these reviews from an energy system perspective, four overarching themes emerged:
- Energy systems convergence
- Diversification within the energy sectors
- Energy efficiency everywhere
- Confluence of computational and empirical capabilities
Six sets of core opportunities for specific RDD&D activities are presented, organized by the energy sectors represented in the technical chapters of this report:
- Enabling modernization of electric power systems
- Advancing clean electric power technologies
- Increasing efficiency of building systems and technologies
- Innovating clean energy technologies in advanced manufacturing
- Advancing systems and technologies to produce cleaner fuels
- Advancing clean transportation and vehicle systems and technologies
Twelve cross-cutting technology areas are identified. These avenues of research with benefits across multiple sectors could be pursued through new research initiatives and/or by facilitating more communication between, and enhanced alignment of, existing activities. These cross-cutting technology areas are:
- Electric grid modernization
- Systems integration
- Cybersecurity
- Energy-water nexus
- Subsurface science and technologies
- Materials
- Fuel/engine co-optimization
- Energy storage
- Computational modeling and simulation
- Data and analysis
- Analysis of complex systems
- Characterization and control of material at multi-scales
These issues are summarized in this chapter.