Program News
Access news stories from NREL's research programs.
Sept. 26, 2024
What is the best way to store energy until it is needed?
Finding the answer to this question and others surrounding energy storage is at the heart of Nate Blair's work as the group manager for NREL's Distributed Energy Systems and Storage Analysis team.
Sept. 25, 2024
As electric vehicles (EVs) continue to grow their share of the market, several federal agencies are transitioning their own fleets to EVs, too.
Sept. 24, 2024
The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) has honored the solar researcher with a STAR of Tomorrow Award.
Sept. 20, 2024
Internships offer students the opportunity to gain valuable experience in their field before joining the workforce—but for interns at NREL, they have the added motivation of contributing to meaningful work in energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Sept. 20, 2024
Barriers that are currently preventing the use of greater percentages of biomass-based diesel fuel blended into petroleum diesel have been identified, along with strategies to overcome them.
Sept. 19, 2024
NREL brings together experts from across the country for the annual Cement and Concrete Decarbonization Meeting.
Sept. 18, 2024
A new NREL-authored report provides recommendations for addressing key gaps in the domestic hydropower supply chain.
Sept. 18, 2024
Haitian stakeholders are working with USAID and NREL to enhance local workforce capabilities, develop robust regulatory frameworks, and, eventually, deploy cutting-edge technologies.
Sept. 18, 2024
The Materials Science senior scientist was named one of NREL's 2024 Distinguished Members of Research Staff.
Sept. 18, 2024
Guam100 will help determine technical and economic scenarios toward attaining this goal affordably and equitably.
Sept. 16, 2024
The third cohort of West Gate, NREL's Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program, includes innovations ranging from pumping carbon dioxide into pit lakes to helping solar arrays adapt to a passing cloud.
Sept. 16, 2024
Join the Solar Decathlon 2025 Design Challenge to compete with teams from around the globe in zero-energy design.
Sept. 16, 2024
A novel DOE Office of Science program builds bridges between minority-serving institutions and national laboratories.
Sept. 13, 2024
This DOE program challenges students to find new solutions to increase building energy efficiency while taking equity, affordability, and resilience into consideration.
Sept. 13, 2024
Buildings researchers at NREL are committed to transforming America's homes, offices, businesses, and other buildings into more efficient, affordable, healthy, and resilient places.
Sept. 12, 2024
A research team discovered a method to transform materials with three-dimensional atomic structures into nearly two-dimensional structures.
Sept. 12, 2024
NREL has released version 2.0 of the Cybersecurity Value-at-Risk Framework, a free, publicly available tool that helps power plant owners and operators assess their cybersecurity risks and make sound cybersecurity investment decisions.
Sept. 10, 2024
Coastal, remote, and island communities face unique energy challenges because of their geographic isolation, which often contributes to issues with energy access, quality, affordability, and reliability.
Sept. 9, 2024
Farmers and rural small businesses in the United States are interested in transitioning to renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency for their businesses.
Sept. 5, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences program recently selected NREL to lead A Center for Power Electronics Materials and Manufacturing Exploration (APEX), a new Energy Frontier Research Center.
Sept. 5, 2024
A group of 10 stakeholders from the Lao People's Democratic Republic visited NREL to advance the country's vehicle electrification and clean energy transition goals.
Sept. 3, 2024
Heath Garrison has significantly raised the standard of electrical safety across the laboratory—so much so that he was named one of NREL's 2024 Distinguished Members of Operations Staff.
Aug. 29, 2024
After winning a collegiate competition, the next step for most teams is to celebrate.
Aug. 29, 2024
In the latest Manufacturing Masterminds Q&A, Aday shares why Bill Nye inspired her to become a scientist, how 3D manufacturing and artificial intelligence could help the cement and concrete industries decarbonize, and why handling a crowd of 1,000 people is the same as handling a 1,000-pound animal.
Aug. 29, 2024
The industrial sector is integral to our daily lives, yet we do not often see the people and technologies that power it in action.
Aug. 28, 2024
Recognizing the crucial role heliostats play at large-scale concentrating solar power facilities, the U.S. Department of Energy's Heliostat Consortium awarded a combined $3 million across six projects to innovate heliostat controls, deployment, and workforce training.
Aug. 27, 2024
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is extending its "Powered By" webinar series to feature more grid planning and analysis tools starting on Sept. 10.
Aug. 27, 2024
A new, specially designed cybersecurity tool for hydropower plants is now in development at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Aug. 22, 2024
No molecule stands alone—they need others, at least when it comes to being able to display useful photophysical, electronic, and chemical properties.
Aug. 22, 2024
NREL's National Wind Technology Center hosted 36 interns for the summer. The Leading Edge caught up with six of those interns to learn about their work, achievements, and hopes for the future.
Aug. 21, 2024
DTE Materials has access to NREL expertise and equipment through the Shell GameChanger Accelerator Powered by NREL (GCxN) program. DTE’s patented process, called Clearwash, is designed to make anatomical changes to biomass to make it integrate with ceramic binders more effectively.
Aug. 21, 2024
Annual NREL-authored report outlines last year's advancements in the offshore wind energy industry, including major milestones that signal positive growth.
Aug. 20, 2024
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced approximately $11.5 million in funding through its new Inspiring Generations of New Innovators to Impact Technologies in Energy 2024 (IGNIITE 2024) program. Three researchers from NREL are among the inaugural class of selectees.
Aug. 19, 2024
Call it fate or happenstance, but NREL's Rebecca Smaha found her chemistry specialization in an auditorium at Princeton University during her junior year.
Aug. 19, 2024
After more than two years of hard work, the Kestrel supercomputer completes its full buildout to reach 44 petaflops of computing power focused on renewable energy and energy efficiency research.
Aug. 14, 2024
At NREL, researchers often serve as guides who help communities navigate the world of renewable energy solutions.
Aug. 14, 2024
Anuj Sanghvi, now an NREL cybersecurity researcher and network security engineer, always knew he wanted to work in engineering. He was one of those children—the ones who take toys and electronics apart to play with the circuit boards.
Aug. 8, 2024
Khan is a researcher within NREL's Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences and has been named a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Aug. 8, 2024
Bill Gillies was chosen as a 2024 Distinguished Member of Operations Staff for his contributions to the laboratory.
Aug. 8, 2024
DOE launched the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Clean Energy Education Prize through the American-Made program to address the growing need for a robust and diverse clean energy workforce. Today, the final winners of the HBCU Clean Energy Education Prize in the Inspire Track were announced.
Aug. 6, 2024
With more than 500,000 buildings and structures at more than 500 domestic and international naval sites, the U.S. Navy has an opportunity to achieve significant energy and cost savings by increasing efficiency.
Aug. 6, 2024
In solar cells and light-emitting diodes, maintaining the excited state kinetics of molecules against annihilation is a race against time.
Aug. 5, 2024
In the latest Manufacturing Masterminds Q&A, Jibo shares why a prosthesis changed how he sees himself and how clean energy could help manufacturing facilities do far more than just reduce their emissions.
Aug. 5, 2024
Parveen Dhillon and Paul Torcellini have been recognized by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) for their outstanding contributions and accomplishments to sustainable technology.
Aug. 5, 2024
Soft costs for the private and public electric vehicle supply equipment needed to support electric vehicle fleets are essential to the transportation sector's electrification but are not well understood.
Aug. 1, 2024
Over the past seven months, a select group of college students in Texas and Georgia have been collaborating with local organizations to drive clean energy education and solutions.
July 30, 2024
BUILD'EM represents a promising step toward a greener construction industry.
July 30, 2024
In the latest installment of NREL's Tell Me Something Grid Series, grid researcher Sherin Ann Abraham dives into the exciting challenges of modernizing the distribution grid.
July 29, 2024
An extensive study on one of NREL's research wind turbines offers keys insights into the benefits and challenges of downwind operations.
July 26, 2024
At the TORQUE Conference in Florence, Italy, this May, NREL wind researchers took to the stage to share their impactful research and learn from others.
July 26, 2024
A new kind of grid technology, called medium-voltage silicon carbide converters, could help the U.S. grid smoothly transition to renewable energy.
July 25, 2024
Researchers at NREL recently explored a model of risk evaluation to energy system upgrades in a project called Cyber100 Compass.
July 24, 2024
Evolving cybersecurity risks to the U.S. energy sector can challenge rapidly transforming system architectures and technologies. To understand and adapt to cybersecurity threats utilities need first to understand their own environment.
July 23, 2024
A new event from NREL, Camp Cleantech aims to give startups the tools and lessons to overcome the surprises that await them on the journey to the market.
July 22, 2024
Reducing capital and viability risks for infrastructure investment decisions will accelerate the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. NREL is helping stakeholders forecast demand and minimize infrastructure buildout costs.
July 19, 2024
When Cory Frontin is not developing simulation methods for wind and renewable energy, he likes to do "typical outdoorsy Colorado things," like rock climbing.
July 18, 2024
When NREL Senior Mechanical Engineer Eric Kozubal first learned about the LiquidCool's technology, he was eager to get to work on it through the first IN² cohort.
July 18, 2024
A new crop of Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) award selections will benefit farmers and small rural businesses by focusing on how to remove market barriers to distributed wind turbine deployment in agricultural settings.
July 17, 2024
Deriving inspiration from the natural process of photosynthesis, NREL researchers developed a mixed-dimensionality (2D/1D/2D) trilayer of semiconductors to enable exciton dissociation.
July 17, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity announced nine Phase 1 Utility/Data Challenge track winning teams of the American-Made Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 2.
July 17, 2024
Advanced computing plays a pivotal role in accelerating clean energy research at NREL, whether researchers need simulations of traffic systems, models of biomass conversion, or optimization of renewable energy implementation.
July 16, 2024
Sreekant Narumanchi, who leads NREL's Advanced Power Electronics and Electric Machines group, was chosen as one of NREL's Distinguished Researchers in 2024.
July 15, 2024
Each year, awards are presented to individuals from Department of Energy national laboratories and other partner organizations for their contributions to overall program efforts and in recognition of their research, development, demonstration, and deployment achievements in specific areas.
July 15, 2024
The year 2023, according to NREL analyst David Feldman, was a year of historic proportions in the solar power industry.
July 11, 2024
Using electricity generated by offshore wind turbines as one pathway to split water to produce clean hydrogen may make economic sense, particularly along the U.S. Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, according to researchers at NREL.
July 11, 2024
Since 2019, NREL senior scientist Cara Lubner and her team have made considerable progress toward mapping the energy landscape of an enzymatic reaction.
July 2, 2024
As a young girl growing up in Connecticut, NREL's Strategy Lead Kate Anderson dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
July 2, 2024
Biotech entrepreneur and Hexas Biomass Founder and CEO Wendy Owens has brought her groundbreaking (pun intended) crop to the Shell GameChanger Accelerator Powered by NREL (GCxN).
July 2, 2024
The new Hydropower Testing Network connects hydropower technology developers with testing capability providers that can help developers advance their technologies toward commercialization.
July 1, 2024
New research funded by the U.S. Department of Energy examines degradation mechanisms of PSCs under the unfiltered sunlight of the outdoors in comparison with widely used light-emitting diodes.
June 28, 2024
Bitter cold temperatures. Unrelenting heat. Power outages that last for weeks. NREL researchers are planning for extreme weather by calculating what it will take to make the situation survivable.
June 28, 2024
With a new resource developed by NREL, hydropower organizations can better prepare for worker turnover and limit knowledge loss along the way.
June 27, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy has selected two new projects to benefit from a premier grid control evaluation capability at NREL.
June 27, 2024
Each year over 50% of all NREL subcontracts, approximately $60–$75 million, are awarded to small businesses.
June 26, 2024
The number of residential solar photovoltaics installations continues to increase across the United States. But that increase is slower for low-income households, who made up 23% of solar adopters as of 2022.
June 26, 2024
Approximately 70 researchers from 14 countries gathered in California earlier this month to discuss the progress toward deploying multiple terawatts of solar power around the globe to transition to a sustainable energy system.
June 26, 2024
Seeking ways to build EV charging capacity, Sedona, Arizona participated in a peer-learning cohort through the U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) program focused on planning and funding strategies for EV charging infrastructure deployment.
June 25, 2024
The 2024 Electricity Annual Technology Baseline provides updated, easy-to-use data on the cost and performance of electricity generation technologies in the United States.
June 24, 2024
Ten years ago, NREL researcher Shanti Pless suggested flow-battery company ESS Inc. apply to the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator and championed it through the process.
June 24, 2024
An interest in juggling paved the way for Jason Jonkman's offshore wind research and allowed him to become one of NREL's 2024 Distinguished Researchers.
June 18, 2024
Lanaia Carveth transitioned from a career as a consultant in the construction industry doing environmental planning, permitting, regulatory compliance, and project management to her current role as a project manager at NREL's National Wind Technology Center.
June 18, 2024
NREL research is helping communities of all sizes lead the way to a just energy transition—including the second-largest city in the nation.
June 17, 2024
Tina Ortega's connection to and reverence for the natural world inspired her to seek out a career that would help protect the environment.
June 17, 2024
Massive public and private investments are being made to support the buildout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the United States, but efficient planning and deployment require sophisticated analysis to ensure convenient, reliable, affordable, and equitable charging for all Americans.
June 14, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen Program honored five NREL researchers for their outstanding achievements at the 2024 Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting.
June 12, 2024
Building more high-voltage direct current transmission lines could better connect solar and wind energy to the U.S. grid.
June 12, 2024
Shifting our perception of extreme weather could support planning a reliable future grid.
June 12, 2024
Ana Aday, a materials science researcher in NREL’s Building Technologies and Science Center, is taking on a whole new challenge: decarbonizing the cement and concrete industry.
June 12, 2024
The SolarAPP+ automated online permitting platform instantly issues a permit for residential solar PV or PV-plus-storage systems if they pass an automated code compliance check, saving valuable time for local governments and solar contractors. In 2023, the platform continued to grow nationwide.
June 11, 2024
Electric vehicles that use high-power charging are quickly becoming the new standard—understanding the grid impacts of high-power charging will ensure inter-grid reliability and keep charging costs low.
June 11, 2024
Take a closer look at how NREL is meeting some of the biggest challenges set out for National Ocean Month.
June 10, 2024
The University of Oklahoma won the 2023 Technical Track with their design for sustainable greenhouse heating and cooling using geothermal energy.
June 10, 2024
Realizing the need and opportunity to probe deeper into the mysteries of the chemical reactions that sustain photosynthesis and enable light-driven ammonia production and hydrogen catalysis, NREL formed the Advanced Spin Resonance Facility.
June 10, 2024
Apply by June 28, 2024, to have your program recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy.
June 7, 2024
When Boston Mayor Michelle Wu was looking for ways to make the city's goal for carbon neutrality by 2050 more equitable, city of Boston staff turned to the Solar Energy Innovation Network (SEIN), a program run by NREL.
June 6, 2024
The 2024 competitions came to a successful close while more than 30 teams gear up to participate in 2025.
June 5, 2024
University of New Hampshire doctoral candidates are designing an axial-flow tidal turbine that will be collecting data at the mouth of the Piscataqua River in New England.
June 5, 2024
When it comes to increasing the carrying capacity of U.S. transmission lines, there are a few key things to know.
June 5, 2024
When asked about winning one of the inaugural Distinguished Members of Operations Staff awards for 2024, NREL's Kelly McIltrot could only shake her head in disbelief.
June 4, 2024
A new report takes a fresh look at how today's market and operating practices impact the value of transmission that connects multiple regions.
June 3, 2024
While sleek coastal startups may seem to have all the good technology ideas, eureka moments are happening in kitchens, car rides, and classrooms all across the United States.
May 31, 2024
"It can help everybody because it should lead to better decisions in the end." That is the goal of a new resource developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, according to NREL energy analyst Wesley Cole.
May 31, 2024
To study the newest generation of wireless communications and what it offers power systems, NREL built a 5G research platform inside a replicated military microgrid and put it through resilience scenarios and cyberattacks.
May 31, 2024
Originally a mechanical engineer, Bruno Grunau now spends his days testifying before Congress, meeting regularly with the Alaska governor's office, and learning from Alaska's utilities, communities, and Indigenous people whose ancestors have lived here for thousands of years.
May 30, 2024
NREL Senior Research Fellow Emeritus Arthur Nozik investigates methods to turn photons from our solar system's star into fuels, chemicals, and electricity.
May 30, 2024
Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems provide a way to steer electricity to less-congested transmission lines, like a navigation app.
May 22, 2024
Jason Roadman's interest in wind turbines began during his daily commute past the NREL Flatirons Campus. This curiosity, coupled with a desire to use his aerospace engineering skills to make a positive impact, led him to a career at NREL.
May 22, 2024
One method organisms control and manipulate energy for cellular metabolism and survival is the focus of an award-winning NREL research team: flavin-based electron bifurcation.
May 22, 2024
The Clean Energy Cybersecurity Accelerator (CECA) program recently selected Asimily for Cohort 2. Asimily joins runZero as the cohort's second participant.
May 20, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon®—DOE's longest-running student competition—announced the winners of the 2024 Design Challenge at a livestreamed awards ceremony on April 21!
May 20, 2024
Senior Licensing Executive Eric Payne was named a Distinguished Member of Operations Staff in NREL's first cohort.
May 20, 2024
For the solar photovoltaics (PV) industry, rapid growth can produce rapid—and sometimes unpredictable—changes.
May 20, 2024
NREL's Venu Garikapati, a senior transportation data researcher, started his three-year term as chair of the Transportation Research Board's Technical Committee on the Effects of Information and Communication Technologies on Travel Choices on April 15, 2024.
May 16, 2024
Energy efficiency and on-road performance are central to the future of transportation and the clean energy transition.
May 16, 2024
Dynamic line ratings provide one way to increase transmission on the U.S. grid while cutting costs and improving reliability.
May 15, 2024
NREL's fuels and combustion researchers studied the combustion and chemical properties of a potential new biodiesel made by sugar-eating bacteria. This fundamental research is a necessary step to creating well-vetted, reliable, and appropriate new vehicle fuels to hasten the clean energy transition.
May 15, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy just announced the five teams who took home $450,000 each in Phase Two of the FLoating Offshore Wind ReadINess (FLOWIN) Prize.
May 15, 2024
As the United States continues to transition to clean energy, strengthening the domestic supply chain by increasing the availability of critical materials and domestic manufacturing is paramount to enabling greater domestic manufacturing.
May 15, 2024
The 1,300 people who call Eastport, Maine, home live in the easternmost point in the continental United States. The bridged island, connected to the mainland by a single causeway, faces powerful Atlantic Ocean winds and is susceptible to disruptive power outages. But it was not always that way.
May 14, 2024
A research team led by NREL developed a conversion pathway to produce formic acid from CO₂ with high energy efficiency and durability while using renewable electricity.
May 13, 2024
NREL's Staff Awards event has taken place annually since 1980.
May 10, 2024
The quest for more productive catalysts for the creation of sustainable fuels and commodity chemicals via electrochemical reactions just became easier.
May 10, 2024
Launched in 2019, the National Alliance for Water Innovation is a research hub that brings together a world-class team of partners from industry and academia as well as the hub's public membership organization.
May 9, 2024
On its path to opening a facility designed to turn agriculture residue into a scalable biofuel business, SAFFiRE Renewables, LLC plans to break ground on its pilot plant near Liberal, Kansas, in late 2024.
May 8, 2024
Nearly 33 million electric vehicles (EVs) nationwide—that is the number of vehicles the Unites States should be prepared to support through a national charging network by the year 2030, researchers at NREL estimated in a recent landmark study.
May 8, 2024
Diversity is a core value of the laboratory—one that is pivotal to achieving its ambitious goal.
May 7, 2024
The wind industry could benefit from the use of artificial intelligence to design and deploy wind plants, according to an article in Nature Energy written by researchers at NREL.
May 6, 2024
The natural gas industry is one of the largest greenhouse gas emitters in the United States, and significant amounts of natural gas are used for electricity, heating, and industrial and chemical processes.
May 3, 2024
Researchers have been exploring how additive manufacturing could complement marine energy technologies. Hint: the two are a promising pair.
May 2, 2024
NREL photovoltaics researchers created a new version of the iconic chart that tracks world-record photovoltaic cells across many technologies and time.
May 2, 2024
Alaska's Cook Inlet contains huge amounts of untapped tidal energy. But little is known about how much economic value this powerful inlet could bring to Alaska—until now.
May 1, 2024
On May 1, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the 10 Solar Prize Round 7 finalist teams who were each awarded $100,000 in cash and $75,000 in technical support vouchers for their innovative ideas for advancing solar deployment.
April 30, 2024
On Monday, April 29, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the division winners and Project Pitch Champion in the Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition's Class of 2023-2024. In the five years of this competition, this was the largest ever class of competing teams.
April 30, 2024
NREL was recently selected as one of 16 teams to research enhanced production of geologic hydrogen by the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy program.
April 30, 2024
The latest Tell Me Something Grid article features Jarrad Wright and his analysis of transmission expansion needs and trade-offs in a low-carbon future.
April 26, 2024
Tackling clean energy challenges means bringing diverse voices to the table, and that is exactly what happened at the 2024 JISEA Annual Meeting (JAM24).
April 25, 2024
Three NREL labs were awarded green certifications by My Green Lab late last year.
April 25, 2024
Researchers at NREL have prepared a roadmap on how to move tandem solar cells—particularly those that mesh different photovoltaic technologies—closer to commercialization.
April 22, 2024
Three teams are building better conductor systems—or even superconductors—to supercharge transmission lines, wind turbines, MRI machines, electric motors, airplanes, and more.
April 22, 2024
Armed with a Ph.D. in bat studies, NREL's lead environmental scientist Cris Hein helps bats—and other wildlife—share the skies with wind turbines.
April 22, 2024
NASA and NREL created a device that causes an internal short circuit inside the layers of a battery cell, providing information that allows NASA to meet its stringent battery safety requirements.
April 18, 2024
NREL's high-performance computing, efficient data center operations, and powerful visualizations have left an indelible stamp on clean energy innovation.
April 18, 2024
A new report identifies that educational training programs, like the U.S. Department of Energy Collegiate Wind Competition, which provides participating students with real-world wind energy experience, could help meet the growing demand for trained wind energy workers.
April 18, 2024
Nancy Haegel, the director of the National Center for Photovoltaics at NREL, has been elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
April 17, 2024
When the Board of Commissioners for Washtenaw County, Michigan, approved a climate action plan in 2022, the county was uncertain what implementation steps it needed to take—and how to pay for all of it.
April 17, 2024
Payment issues can affect electric vehicle (EV) drivers' charging experiences. EV charging should be accessible, convenient, and reliable, and payment issues affect both accessibility and reliability.
April 17, 2024
Offshore wind makes sense for decarbonizing energy production and building energy security and independence when it comes to ocean renewable energy production in Alaska’s Outer Continental Shelf.
April 15, 2024
NREL experts weigh in on the benefits and downsides to our oldest form of renewable energy.
April 11, 2024
Remote, coastal, and island communities across the country face similar energy resilience challenges—from high energy costs and aging infrastructure to outages from extreme weather events and climate change impacts—but each community's values and priorities create a unique path toward energy resilience.
April 9, 2024
In the latest Manufacturing Masterminds Q&A, Travis Lowder shares why he did not need a technical background to fight climate change (and neither do you!) and why humility might be the most crucial trait for his job.
April 8, 2024
In creating the Chevron Studio program, NREL and Chevron Technologies Venture teamed up to turn a challenge into an opportunity.
April 8, 2024
Researchers from NREL, in collaboration with industry partners, have demonstrated the potential for a zero-tailpipe emissions supply chain—one that transports goods from the nation's busiest ports to their final destinations without producing vehicle emissions—all while using today's technology.
April 8, 2024
On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will traverse North America bringing a period of midday complete darkness to 12 U.S. states and affecting solar power plants across all 50 U.S. states.
April 5, 2024
After presenting innovative solutions for some of the most complex challenges in the buildings industry, 11 students have been named winners of the 2024 JUMP into STEM Final Competition.
April 4, 2024
Teams of postsecondary students are invited to join these challenging competitions that offer skills-building experience, a deep dive into clean energy technologies, and the chance to win cash prizes.
April 3, 2024
Pumped storage hydropower might be one of the most promising ways to store energy for a future 100% clean energy grid. But it has been difficult for the public to know how much these facilities might cost to build—until now.
April 3, 2024
Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MHDVs) account for just 5% of vehicles on the road in the United States, yet they are responsible for 21% of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.
April 2, 2024
Twenty-three teams from the ecosystem tracks just won the Clean Energy Innovation Prize's CONCEPT Phase and have been awarded $100,000 in cash prizes to begin working collaboratively with underserved communities to advance clean energy and climate projects.
April 1, 2024
The sensors in today's Whisker Labs Ting device trace their origins to the original sensors tested in NREL's Energy Systems Integration Facility during the IN2 program.
March 29, 2024
The Sustainable Agriculture Catalyzer is collaborating with farmers to better understand the benefits and tradeoffs of decarbonization strategies beyond emissions reduction.
March 28, 2024
Researchers across labs joined a Marine Energy Career Panel and agreed that their jobs are nothing if not varied.
March 26, 2024
New high-resolution solar data and analysis provides an in-depth look at solar resources in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.
March 25, 2024
NREL researchers contributed to a thorough analysis and action plan to guide the United States on the most effective ways to bring Atlantic offshore wind energy to communities on the East Coast.
March 25, 2024
The Roll-to-Roll Consortium aims to accelerate domestic manufacturing and reduce the cost of durable, high-performance systems.
March 25, 2024
Wind energy's growth must be planned with careful consideration of atmospheric physics, turbine design, and grid resilience, as well as environmental and social impacts.
March 21, 2024
The new, easy-to-use Wind Resource Database offers public access to more than a petabyte of detailed wind resource data in the United States and other countries.
March 18, 2024
As a child immersed in the science of NASA, Amy Robertson was bound to end up an engineer—an aerospace engineer, to be exact. At NREL, she has traded in her love of the cosmos for the delightfully challenging dynamics of floating offshore wind energy.
March 18, 2024
The San Diego Association of Governments has ambitious plans to make local progress toward California's goal of carbon neutrality by 2045.
March 13, 2024
Fossil Ridge High School emerged victorious in the 2024 Colorado High School Science Bowl, continuing its winning streak for the fourth year in a row by narrowly besting second-place finisher Stargate Charter High School.
March 13, 2024
A new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory explores investment opportunities in hydropower.
March 8, 2024
Alec Schnabel is working to advance one especially powerful part of marine energy technologies: their electronic guts.
March 7, 2024
Historically, photovoltaic (PV) modules have demonstrated high reliability, making them a dependable and growing part of global decarbonization efforts.
March 7, 2024
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has launched the new National Distributed Wind Network and complementary Distributed Wind Energy Resource Hub.
March 7, 2024
A new approach to grid planning could make it possible to power your home with the nation's best and lowest-cost wind and solar energy, no matter where you live.
March 7, 2024
An important consideration for electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft is where they will charge and whether the existing power grid infrastructure can accommodate this demand.
March 7, 2024
As a polymer scientist and the chief technology officer of the NREL-led BOTTLE consortium, Knauer is responsible for helping solve one of the world's greatest challenges--plastic pollution.
March 5, 2024
Combined, two first-in-the-world products—NREL's ALTRIOS rail optimization software and Parallel Systems' autonomous battery-electric rail vehicles—aim to help shift a portion of the freight currently carried by on-road trucks to rail, catalyzing decarbonization across the whole transportation sector.
March 4, 2024
Over the past year, NREL and industry partner Nextracker teamed up to advance the reliability of photovoltaic (PV) tracker technologies during severe weather events.
March 4, 2024
New NREL research is providing first-of-its-kind modeling to help curb the current shortage of distribution transformers and ensure a reliable and resilient power grid.
March 1, 2024
Forty teams from 37 collegiate institutions are advancing to the final stage of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon® 2024 Design Challenge based on their cutting-edge, zero-energy building designs.
March 1, 2024
When the third cohort of Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project communities was announced in 2023, the inclusion of Molokai, Hawaii, caught the eye of Bri Gabel, a sustainability coordinator for the City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska.
Feb. 29, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Feb. 20 honored staffers from NREL for their work on five major projects with far-reaching implications.
Feb. 29, 2024
The U.S. energy transition is gaining speed, accelerated by government renewable energy goals and billions of dollars through the Inflation Reduction Act. As we race toward a greener future, understanding the potential adverse effects of renewable energy technologies before they are deployed has never been more critical.
Feb. 29, 2024
The REopt team at NREL has significantly enhanced the publicly available REopt web tool and its underlying open-source code, providing more powerful capabilities.
Feb. 29, 2024
RunZero was selected as the first solution provider to participate in Cohort 2, through which their technology will be evaluated in the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) Cyber Range.
Feb. 29, 2024
Over the next 12 months, BOTTLE will scale the process to produce several pounds of PHA fiber, which The North Face will test and evaluate for use in its product lines.
Feb. 29, 2024
A next-generation biorefinery model holds the potential to produce biofuels and chemicals through a process that researchers say has proven to be more efficient in converting plant biomass.
Feb. 28, 2024
Pathways to sustainable biofuels are within view as computational models solve key challenges.
Feb. 28, 2024
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the winners of the first phase of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Clean Energy Education Prize Partnerships Track.
Feb. 27, 2024
The city of Philadelphia has pledged carbon neutrality by 2050, and the State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) Platform is illustrating opportunities to reach that goal equitably.
Feb. 27, 2024
Tools help energy leaders learn essential skills in modeling power systems and provide a "how-to" guide on operating and maintaining battery energy storage systems.
Feb. 27, 2024
NREL is working with the Kern Community College District in a partnership that aims to bring more education and training opportunities for clean energy technologies into the communities.
Feb. 27, 2024
India is transforming its power system, with distributed energy resources playing a major role in the country’s decarbonization journey. NREL grid analysts Kapil Duwadi and Erik Pohl discuss their roles on a team working with India’s state utilities to manage rapid distributed energy resource growth with customized tools and solutions to ensure safe and reliable grid integration.
Feb. 27, 2024
Senior polymer science researcher and group manager
Nicholas Rorrer currently leads a team of NREL researchers working to replace the heavy, resource-intensive steel parts in vehicles with recyclable carbon fiber composites.
Feb. 26, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has issued a request for proposals under the Competitiveness Improvement Project to support commercialization and market expansion of small and medium wind turbine technology.
Feb. 26, 2024
A noticeable change filled the air this summer—an actual change in air quality. Wildfires in Canada produced smoke-filled skies and wood-burnt, chemically scented air.
Feb. 21, 2024
In NREL's latest Manufacturing Masterminds Q&A, Kerry Rippy explains why she chose chemistry over literature, why carbon capture cannot be our only decarbonization solution, and how the mining industry could reduce emissions with the rocks it already digs up.
Feb. 20, 2024
Transit and school bus fleets across the nation are working hard to incorporate clean transportation solutions that help communities meet decarbonization goals and improve local health outcomes.
Feb. 20, 2024
Through its IN2 demonstration, NREL is helping BlocPower assess how its technical capabilities can perform in the field.
Feb. 19, 2024
Angel McCoy started her career as a meteorologist, which put her on the path that led to her current role at NREL supporting the regulatory process for offshore wind energy in the United States.
Feb. 19, 2024
The Distributed Energy Resource Cybersecurity Framework (DER-CF) emerges as a crucial tool in assessing and fortifying solar cybersecurity, offering a comprehensive platform for self-assessment and addressing vulnerabilities in behind-the-meter DER systems, with ongoing enhancements promising a more secure energy future.
Feb. 15, 2024
The winners of the U.S. Department of Energy 2023 Geothermal Collegiate Competition rose to the top by innovating to meet community energy needs through clean, renewable geothermal heating and cooling.
Feb. 13, 2024
DOE tapped NREL to support a new $15 million research effort to improve the measurement, reporting, and verification of carbon dioxide removal technologies, an industry with the potential to help mitigate climate change by addressing existing carbon emissions and removing them from the atmosphere.
Feb. 12, 2024
Solar energy can provide opportunities for renters to develop equity through community solar projects or create avenues for workforce development, lower utility bills, and increased energy resilience.
Feb. 9, 2024
The new Powered By webinar series hosted by NREL's Grid Planning and Analysis Center (GPAC) can be your new go-to resource.
Feb. 8, 2024
A research team led by NREL recently received funding for their project that will study and model the behavior of microbes in bioreactors and reasons for potential failures at industrial scale.
Feb. 5, 2024
The Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) for Technology Transfer recently awarded NREL Director Martin Keller its 2024 Laboratory Director of the Year Award.
Feb. 5, 2024
For its demonstration with IN², CorePower is partnering with Eaton, a power management company, to test a transformer designed for an electric vehicle charging application, especially mass EV charging for things like vehicle fleets.
Feb. 1, 2024
In a new study, NREL researchers analyzed the benefits and drawbacks of promising marine carbon management techniques.
Feb. 1, 2024
This year's AlgaePrize finalist teams include students from high schools, community colleges, and universities from 11 states across the United States and Puerto Rico.
Jan. 30, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition announced today that 60 teams from 53 schools are advancing as finalists in the Class of 2023–2024, including 17 teams from 17 schools that joined the competition for the one-semester division since December.
Jan. 29, 2024
Shashank Yellapantula, senior staff scientist in NREL's Computational Science Center, was recognized as a 2024 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Associate Fellow.
Jan. 26, 2024
A new analysis from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and NREL found that installing geothermal heat pumps in around 70% of U.S. buildings could save as much as 593 terawatt-hours of electricity generation annually.
Jan. 26, 2024
In the latest installment of the Tell Me Something Grid series, NREL's Paul Denholm shares what you need to know about the reliability of the U.S. power grid and why renewable energy can keep the lights on.
Jan. 25, 2024
Meet the four teams competing to create materials that can out-conduct pure copper in the $4.8 million Conductivity-enhanced materials for Affordable, Breakthrough Leapfrog Electric and thermal applications (CABLE) Conductor Manufacturing Prize.
Jan. 24, 2024
A massive data set of photovoltaic system performance quantifies the small but significant impacts of extreme weather and long-term degradation, with important lessons for the PV industry.
Jan. 22, 2024
The new $5 million SOLVE IT Prize will support development of innovative local clean energy solutions with heavy community involvement.
Jan. 22, 2024
As a kid, Genevieve Starke dreamt of becoming a con artist. Naturally, the little girl from Pennsylvania decided to pivot her dream to a field where rule-following was a little more appreciated. She picked engineering.
Jan. 19, 2024
Mithat John Kisacikoglu has been tapped to lead the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transportation Systems Committee (TSC), which focuses on electrification of the entire transportation sector.
Jan. 18, 2024
DOE announced the Phase 1 winners of the Wind Turbine Materials Recycling Prize. This $5.1 million, two-phase competition aims to boost a sustainable U.S. recycling industry for two high-impact categories of wind turbine materials: fiber-reinforced composites and rare earth elements.
Jan. 18, 2024
NREL recently bid farewell to a 100-kilowatt distributed wind turbine prototype on NREL's Flatirons Campus. The turbine's removal signals the beginning of new, expanded distributed wind research capabilities for the laboratory.
Jan. 18, 2024
In just three years as a researcher at NREL, K. Shankari successfully enabled communities to collect impactful multimodal data and went on detail to the U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation to ensure the reliable buildout of a national electric vehicle charging network.
Jan. 16, 2024
Nicole Mendoza is building extra-sustainable clean energy technologies, including kelp-like wave energy devices that mimic her beloved nature.
Jan. 16, 2024
A newly patented kind of energy generator could be woven into fabrics, building walls, or roads to form what their inventors call "metamaterials."
Jan. 12, 2024
The United States is poised for a clean energy boom, with the new investments flowing from 2021's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act expected to unlock around $3 trillion in clean energy and energy efficiency investments.
Jan. 11, 2024
NREL has awarded $1.8 million to fund seven projects to support the Cadmium Telluride Accelerator Consortium.
Jan. 11, 2024
To understand how things work, we must think small. Really small. Processes that affect how materials appear or behave happen at the atomic level. That is a key place for researchers to start, but such atomic-scale challenges are difficult because they require that researchers solve the underlying equations of quantum physics, which are computationally intensive and expensive.
Jan. 11, 2024
A new crop of semifinalists has been selected to move on to the Set! Contest in the American-Made Solar Prize Round 7.
Jan. 10, 2024
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office announced 25 Phase 1 winning teams, each receiving a $50,000 cash prize and advancing to Phase 2 of the competition.
Jan. 9, 2024
The annual suite of electricity system scenarios shows there could be fewer emissions, more renewables, and clean energy tax credits continued through 2050.
Jan. 9, 2024
Dany Tome, a graduate student at the University of South-Eastern Norway, spent five weeks at NREL as part of a larger partnership between Norway and the United States. As part of his internship, Tome researched hydropower, one of the world's biggest sources of renewable energy.
Jan. 4, 2024
Transportation and mobility researchers will showcase their latest research at the 103rd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Jan. 7–11, 2024 in Washington, D.C.
Jan. 3, 2024
Three NREL researchers recently had the opportunity to contribute to the landmark Fifth National Climate Assessment, sharing NREL’s expertise and learning from other leaders at the table.
