News Release: Inflation Reduction Act Invests $150 Million in NREL Projects
Improvements to Colorado Campuses Will Accelerate Laboratory’s Mission for a Clean Energy Future
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will begin work early next year on a series of additions and improvements to two of its campuses made possible by $150 million in funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA).
“We have a robust plan to use each of these dollars in a way that maximizes the value of this important investment,” said Martin Keller, director of NREL. “The funds will accelerate three-plus years of planned capital investment to modernize research infrastructure that enables DOE research and development activities, laboratory renovations, and deferred maintenance. These critical campus infrastructure improvements will better position the lab and DOE to fulfill our urgent research agenda to combat climate change.”
The funds have been designated for the following priorities:
- $89 million for modernizing research infrastructure
- $61 million for laboratory renovations and deferred maintenance.
Signed into law on Aug. 16, 2022, by President Joe Biden, who called it “the most aggressive action” to combat climate change ever, IRA invests $369 billion over 10 years with key investments to be made in building a clean energy economy. This legislation will put the United States on a path toward curbing greenhouse gas emissions to 40% of 2005 levels and achieving President Biden’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Additionally, the legislation will accelerate the country’s energy transition while advancing environmental justice, benefitting public health, and creating domestic jobs.
Most of the IRA spending takes the form of tax credits and direct consumer incentives, but there is also significant funding for research and innovation at DOE’s national laboratories to keep America on the cutting edge of a clean energy future. At NREL, the funding will support projects at the South Table Mountain site near Golden, Colo, and the Flatirons Campus near Boulder, Colorado.
“You will see a lot of construction going on, a lot of updates, a lot of new equipment coming here,” said Keller, who welcomed President Biden to the Flatirons Campus last year. “You will see a lot of impactful new improvements to this laboratory.”
Major projects at the South Table Mountain site include the design and construction of a new Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility pilot plant, which will speed up work on the development of sustainable aviation fuels. Other projects include the construction of an analytical suite for the Materials, Chemical, and Computational Science directorate to fast-track discovery and deployment of new clean energy technologies. NREL is also investing in critical laboratory renovations that will advance NREL’s mission of advancing the science and engineering of energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, and renewable power technologies and supporting the integration and optimization of energy systems required to decarbonize the U.S. economy. These renovations will increase laboratory capacity, which is currently oversubscribed.
The Flatirons Campus will also receive a sizable investment, including expanding electrical and water line capacity, as the campus currently trucks in its water supplies. Funds will also be invested in the campus’s Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) research platform that will support the administration’s decarbonization goals in the grid, buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors.
Additional opportunities exist for NREL to partner with DOE and other federal agencies, as well as with state, local, and tribal governments, as well as industry, in meeting their goals and executing new programs and additional funding through the IRA.
NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC.