Showing 17 results for Author: Thomaz M. Carvalhaes
Jun, 2026
Journal
Energy infrastructure can both induce and suffer risks from wildfires ranging from direct damage to energy assets such as substations and power lines to Public Safety Power Shutoffs. Recent wildfire events underscore the need for data-driven approaches that help states and utilities proactively plan for wildfire risk. Existing national tools such as Federal Emergency Manag…
Mar, 2026
Conference Paper
Several works have been documented in the literature to study the societal effect of power outages and to analyze their correlation with the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI). However, the relationship between National Risk Index (NRI) and power outages is yet to be explored. This work analyzes the NRI indices such as Risk, Expected Annual Loss, Social Vulnerability, and Co…
Mar, 2026
Conference Paper
Several works have been documented in the literature to study the societal effect of power outages and to analyze their correlation with the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI). Because the SVI is calculated based on the summed rank of multiple vulnerability factors for environmental hazards, it can include factors irrelevant to power outages caused by extreme events. This wo…
Dec, 2025
Journal
In the face of atypical weather events, power infrastructure failures, and limited resources for resilience investment, energy decision-makers need data-driven metrics to allocate resilience investments and maximize the reduction of power outage impacts. For state-level planning, for instance, ranking the resilience of each county is key to ensuring effective distribution…
Nov, 2025
ORNL Report
Residential, industrial, and large load data center facility expansion have exacerbated management backlogs. Additionally, as newer technologies emerge in larger utility providers, a chasm between urban and rural resilience grows – creating segmentation across the state. With new development, industries, and large load additions to the electric grid across the Volunteer st…
May, 2025
Journal
Indoor cooling is essential to reduce heat stress and increase passive survivability during heatwaves. Although air conditioning (AC) is recommended for maintaining indoor thermal comfort, low- and medium-income households in the U.S. often do not own an AC and/or limit AC usage to reduce energy consumption and associated costs, thereby risking their health and safety. Wit…
Nov, 2023
ORNL Report
In order to simulate the effect of interactions between urban morphology and microclimate on demand for heating and cooling in buildings, we utilize source elevation data to create 3D building geometries at the neighborhood and city scale. Additionally, we use urban morphology concepts to design virtual morphologies for simulation scenarios in an undeveloped land parcel. U…
Nov, 2023
ORNL Report
Direct Air Capture (DAC) systems offer a promising solution for mitigating global carbon emissions by directly removing ambient carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. While future DAC facilities are typically envisioned as being large and centralized, small-scale systems present an alternative approach with advantages such as adaptability and lower uptake costs. By harn…
Nov, 2023
Journal
Hurricane Maria left unprecedented impacts on Puerto Rican communities, leaving some without infrastructure services and unable to communicate with family for several months. To understand the forms of community-level resilience that emerged while hard infrastructure systems took time recover, this article (1) abductively explores resilience as an emergent phenomenon of co…
Nov, 2023
Journal
As the rehabilitation of infrastructure is outpaced by changes in the profile, frequency, and intensity of extreme weather events, infrastructure’s service disruptions and failures become increasingly likely. Safe-to-fail approaches for infrastructure planning and design improve the capacity of cities to adapt for uncertain climate futures by identifying social, ecological…
Nov, 2023
Journal
In anticipation of emerging global urbanization and consequent increases in energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, better understanding and quantification of climate effects on energy use in cities are needed, requiring coordinated research into large-scale, regional, and microclimate impacts to and from the city structure. The methodology described here addresses this n…