Grid Facilities
NREL's state-of-the-art research facilities provide the venue for groundbreaking innovations and collaboration in grid research.
ARIES: Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems
ARIES unites research capabilities at multiple scales and across sectors to create a platform for understanding the full impact of energy systems integration.
Energy Systems Integration Facility
The Energy Systems Integration Facility is the nation's premier user facility for research, development, and demonstration of the components and strategies needed to optimize our entire energy system.
Flatirons Campus
NREL's Flatirons Campus offers similar integration capabilities to the Energy Systems Integration Facility but at a larger (up to 20 MW) scale. Hardware here—such as wind turbines, battery energy storage systems, and solar arrays—can be connected virtually to the Energy System Integration Facility's software modeling and power hardware-in-the-loop capabilities.
Solar Radiation Research Laboratory
The Solar Radiation Research Laboratory is home to the world’s largest collection of radiometers in continuous operation. Researchers collect continuous measurements of basic solar radiation components using pyranometers, pyrheliometers, pyrgeometers, photometers, and spectroradiometers.
Share
