Impacts of COVID-19 related stay-at-home restrictions on residential electricity use and implications for future grid stability.

"Stay-at-home" orders and other health precautions enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to substantial changes in residential electricity usage. We conduct a case study to analyze data from 390 apartments in New York City (NYC) to examine the impacts of two key drivers of residential electricity usage: COVID-19 case-loads and the outdoor temperature. We develop a series of regression models to predict two characteristics of residential electricity usage on weekdays: The average occupied apartment's consumption (kWh) over a 9am-5pm window and the hourly peak demand (Watt) over a 12pm-5pm window.

MFRED, 10 second interval real and reactive power for groups of 390 US apartments of varying size and vintage.

Building electricity is a major component of global energy use and its environmental impacts. Detailed data on residential electricity use have many interrelated research applications, from energy conservation to non-intrusive load monitoring, energy storage, integration of renewables, and electric vs. fossil-based heating.

Realizable planar gradient-index solar lenses.

The design of single element planar hemispherical gradient-index solar lenses that can accommodate the constraints of realistic materials and fabrication techniques are presented, and simulated with an extended and polychromatic solar source for concentrator photovoltaics at flux concentration values exceeding 1000 suns. The planar hemispherical far-field lens is created from a near-field unit magnification spherical gradient-index design, and illustrated with an f/1.40 square solar lens that allows lossless packing within a concentrator module.

Gradient-index lenses for near-ideal imaging and concentration with realistic materials.

Fundamentally new classes of spherical gradient-index lenses with imaging and concentration properties that approach the fundamental limits are derived. These analytic solutions admit severely constrained maximum and minimum refractive indices commensurate with existing manufacturable materials, for realistic optical and solar lenses.

Nominally stationary high-concentration solar optics by gradient-index lenses.

It is shown how novel solutions for realistic gradient-index lenses create the possibility of nominally stationary solar photovoltaic concentrators capable of daylong averaged flux concentration levels of order 10(3).

Stationary nonimaging lenses for solar concentration.

A novel approach for the design of refractive lenses is presented, where the lens is mounted on a stationary aperture and the Sun is tracked by a moving solar cell. The purpose of this work is to design a quasi-stationary concentrator by replacing the two-axis tracking of the Sun with internal motion of the miniaturized solar cell inside the module. Families of lenses are designed with a variation of the simultaneous multiple surface technique in which the sawtooth genetic algorithm is implemented to optimize the geometric variables of the optic in order to produce high fluxes for a range of incidence angles.

The African Millennium Villages.

We describe the concept, strategy, and initial results of the Millennium Villages Project and implications regarding sustainability and scalability. Our underlying hypothesis is that the interacting crises of agriculture, health, and infrastructure in rural Africa can be overcome through targeted public-sector investments to raise rural productivity and, thereby, to increased private-sector saving and investments. This is carried out by empowering impoverished communities with science-based interventions.