As the production process continues to be refined, biomass pyrolysis oils are increasingly being considered as potentially feasible renewable fuels. Combustion of pyrolysis oils in diesel engines has been scarcely studied, and the few studies which have been performed indicate that these fuels exhibit excessively long ignition delay, rendering them dependant on auxiliary ignition sources for di...

NOTICE This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States government. Neither the United States government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, o...

In 1993, the National Renewable Laboratory assessed the available tools for predicting the long-term performance of hybrid power systems. No single tool was found to be capable of modeling the full range of hybrid power technologies being considered for the 1990s and beyond. As a result, NREL prepared a specification for a new model, called HYBRID2; model development by NREL and the University ...

The simulation of the turbulent and potentially separating flow around a rotating, twisted, and tapered airfoil is a challenging task for CFD simulations. This paper describes CFD simulations of the NREL Phase VI turbine that was experimentally characterized in the 24.4 m × 36.6 m NREL/NASA Ames wind tunnel. All computations in this article are performed on the experimental base configuration o...

Currently, floating wind turbines (FWTs) may be the more economical and suitable systems with which to exploit offshore wind energy in deep waters. Among the various types of floating foundations for offshore wind farms, a tension leg platform (TLP) foundation can provide a relatively stable platform for currently available offshore wind turbines without requiring major modifications. In this s...

This paper describes nondestructive characterization techniques for module reliability. These techniques include light and dark current versus voltage and related analysis such as resistance, diode quality factor, and dark current. The use of the NREL laser scanner at zero volts and forward bias is also described as a technique to uncover cracks, shunts, and open-circuit regions in a module. Qu...

LP-CVD ZnO has been developed at IMT as front TCO for a-Si:H p-i-n single-junction and “micromorph” (microcrystalline/amorphous silicon) tandem solar cells. An amorphous silicon single-junction p-i-n cell (~1 cm) with a stabilized efficiency of 9.47 % has independently been confirmed by NREL. Applying the monolithic series connection by laser-scribing, both for amorphous single-junction and mic...