Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) today announced the selection of six industry projects for the advancement of energy technologies using high performance computing (HPC).
Called the “hpc4energy incubator,” this pilot program aims to innovate and accelerate the development of energy technology and boost U.S. economic competitiveness in the global marketplace by teaming industry with the scientific and computing resources at national laboratories.
LLNL is using its computing power and weather-simulating capabilities to help the State of California integrate more renewable energy sources—especially wind and solar—into the state’s massive energy grid. The biggest obstacle to California’s goal of achieving 33 percent renewable energy in the state’s power grid by 2020 is the erratic nature of renewables, such as changes in wind patterns and cloud cover. To overcome this impediment, the California Energy Commission has awarded $1.75 million to fund Livermore’s research on better weather predictions, more efficient wind farm design, optimized strategies for integration and other improvements. These will help California’s utilities maximize their use of renewables while assuring a steady supply of energy for their customers.
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The mission of Livermore Laboratory’s High-Performance Computing Innovation Center (HPCIC) is to put the power of LLNL supercomputing into the hands of U.S. industry. To help fuel industrial innovation, the HPCIC allows private-sector firms to collaborate with Laboratory computational scientists who have access to the same world-leading supercomputing power that drives research to fulfill the Laboratory’s missions in national security and other areas. The culmination of decades of investment and research in high-performance computing, these capabilities and expertise are now available to bolster such sectors as energy, materials manufacturing, health care and even finance. The HPCIC also coordinates multiparty collaborations between industry, universities and other government agencies.
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The Heavy Vehicle Aerodynamic Drag Project, led by Kambiz Salari, has been awarded a High-Performance Computing (HPC) Innovation Excellence Award for its use of modeling and simulation to find practical ways to reduce aerodynamic drag and improve the fuel efficiency of tractor trailers.
The award was announced at the 2011 International Supercomputing Conference, held in June in Hamburg, Germany. Criteria for the award include showcasing HPC success stories, demonstrating the value of HPC to funding organizations and garnering public support for investment in HPC. Work by Kambiz and team—recently featured in Businessweek —achieved improvements that boost fuel efficiency by 17%, translating into 6.2 billion gallons of diesel fuel saved (worth $24.2 billion at $3.91 per gallon) and 63 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions avoided each year. Using virtual testing, the team reduced aerodynamic drag and designed an integrated tractor trailer and low-resistance, wide-base single tires. The HPC approach also sped up testing and reduced costs by eliminating the need for prototypes. Concepts that passed virtual testing were then evaluated in full-scale wind-tunnel and track tests in collaboration with Navistar and NASA’s Ames Research Center.
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