Skip navigation to main content.
NREL - National Renewable Energy Laboratory
About NRELEnergy AnalysisScience and TechnologyTechnology TransferApplying Technology

Comprehensive Energy Solutions Text Version

Below is a text version of the Comprehensive Energy Solutions animation, which describes NREL's collaborative work to help businesses and institutions, federal facilities; state, local, and tribal communities; and other nations apply energy innovation to deployment projects that integrate a variety of clean energy technologies. Read more in the summaries below.

Energy Innovation in Action

Learn about NREL's collaborative work to help businesses and institutions, federal facilities; state, local, and tribal communities; and other nations apply energy innovation to deployment projects that integrate a variety of clean energy technologies. Read more in the summaries below.

Project Highlights

Advancing Renewable Energy in Alaska

NREL is helping clear the path for a major energy initiative in Alaska that will ramp up renewable energy development and energy efficiency efforts. By joining forces with the U.S. Department of Energy, tribal and community leaders, and developers, NREL can help establish overarching energy goals and a strategy for achieving them.

Although Alaska faces soaring energy costs and relies heavily on fossil fuels, its abundant, untapped renewable resources—including tidal and wave energy, commercial-scale wind and biomass, geothermal energy, solar energy, and hydropower—offer a potential solution.

NREL's work to help Alaska prepare for a clean energy-driven economic transition includes:

Learn more

Rebuilding Greensburg

After a powerful tornado destroyed 90% of the town's buildings and infrastructure in May 2007, the small farming community of Greensburg, Kansas, decided to rebuild green. NREL and the U.S. Department of Energy have been key partners on the ground to help the town fulfill its vision of rebuilding as a model sustainable community. With guidance and expertise from NREL, Greensburg has put together a comprehensive sustainability plan that put the town on a path to a 36% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from pre-tornado levels.

Greensburg has already taken these actions toward achieving its robust sustainability goals:

  • Established a formal commitment to rely on locally generated renewable energy
  • Resolved to build all city-owned buildings to LEED Platinum standards
  • Launched the GreenHome Program to encourage sustainable residential building.

Learn more

Charting a New Course in Hawaii

Recognizing the need to tap its indigenous resources to create a more sustainable energy strategy, the State of Hawaii turned to DOE to help launch the Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative in 2008. This initiative sets ambitious energy efficiency and renewable energy goals to help the state meet 70% of its energy needs with clean energy by 2030.

Hawaii's energy office is leveraging NREL's technical expertise for help in developing its renewable resources, including solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, ocean, and hydroelectric energy. NREL has established a presence on the ground in Hawaii to leverage technical expertise and technology deployment experience more effectively. The NREL team is working to provide critical project assistance, including:

  • Policy analysis to help inform legislative measures, such as those as outlined in a state of Hawaii press release in July 2008
  • Strategic planning and training
  • Technical research and energy analysis to identify the greatest potential for energy savings and renewable energy development
  • An outreach campaign to generate public support from the people of Hawaii, encourage energy conservation, and facilitate the movement of clean energy technologies into the marketplace by creating awareness of renewable energy development.

Learn more

Bolstering Energy Security at Miramar Air Station

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has teamed with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NREL to help military installations reduce reliance on local energy grids to ensure operational resiliency and increase energy security. This means taking steps to achieve "net-zero" status, producing as much energy onsite as their buildings and facilities consume.

The net-zero initiative kicked off with a pilot project at the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) in California, which had already made significant investments in energy efficiency. NREL worked with the DOE Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) to perform assessments that established baseline energy use and identified the lowest-cost combination of renewable energy options for achieving the net-zero goal. The assessments helped create a roadmap for new measures, including integrating solar energy into base buildings and water systems and purchasing power generated from waste at an adjacent landfill.

Miramar, which has been designated the first green Marine Corps base, is on track to achieve a 43% reduction in building source Btu by 2012 as a result of base-initiated projects. New projects it has lined up will enable it to achieve net-zero electrical energy and a 90% reduction in building source Btu by 2017.

DOD will leverage the template created by the Miramar pilot to facilitate energy projects at other military installations, including the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado and the U.S. Army Pohakuloa training area in Hawaii.

Learn more

Creating a Cleaner, Smarter New Orleans

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina submerged 80% of New Orleans, leaving $90 billion in damages in its wake. Four years later, a cleaner, smarter, greener city is emerging.

As the recovery effort got under way in New Orleans, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NREL established a presence on the ground to encourage the city to embrace energy-efficiency measures and renewable energy technologies as it rebuilt its homes, schools, and infrastructure. The effort has paid off.

Named a Solar America City in 2007, New Orleans has leveraged funding and technical support from DOE and NREL to incorporate solar technologies into new buildings. Relief organizations such as Project Home Again have also benefited from NREL and DOE assistance. Rising to the challenge issued by DOE's Building America program, the nonprofit rebuilt homes in the flood-ravaged Gentilly neighborhood that became the city's first to meet the Builders Challenge criteria, cutting energy use by up to 40%. In the Orleans Parish School District, NREL and DOE assisted in designing new schools that are 25% to 35% more efficient than code, setting a new standard that the district incorporated into its 10-year master plan. NREL and DOE also supported efforts to replace some of the 200 municipal buses lost in the post-Katrina flooding. In August 2009, 39 "green" buses rolled onto the streets of the Big Easy, fueled with a biodiesel blend.

Learn more

Supporting Clean Energy in the Polar Regions

Researchers in many scientific fields consider Antarctica and the Arctic to be pristine environments, ideal for carrying out important scientific study. However, the operations that support research in the polar regions depend entirely on fossil fuels for electricity, transportation, and heating. The U.S. Department of Energy and NREL have teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to explore how renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies can power scientific discovery in the world's most remote areas.

NSF manages research and operations of U.S. facilities in the polar regions, and has set goals to develop alternative energy solutions. The challenge is to ensure that these solutions not only reduce the environmental impact of these stations, but also provide cost-effective and reliable energy supplies to support research needs. NREL is providing technical and project assistance to help U.S. polar facilities:

  • Establish an overall project development plan
  • Develop an Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) model for implementing energy efficiency projects
  • Expand the fleet of electric vehicles for cold weather operations
  • Implement an alternative fuels pilot program, including a hydrogen-fueled shuttle and hydrogen fueling station
  • Deploy wind energy and provide assistance to further develop wind energy capacity
  • Redesign research facilities and housing to be net-zero energy buildings.

Learn more

Fostering Clean Energy Development in the U.S. Virgin Islands

As part of the international partnership for Energy Development in Island Nations (EDIN), NREL is collaborating with the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) on a pilot project to help the territory address its significant energy challenges.

The USVI has abundant renewable energy resources that, along with energy efficiency measures, offer a potential solution to address the territory's total dependence on fossil fuel. NREL has teamed with the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the USVI Energy Action Team to reduce the territory's fossil fuel consumption 60% by 2025. Five integrated working groups in the USVI are focused on the following areas: 1) policy and analysis, 2) renewable energy development and integration, 3) energy efficiency, 4) transportation, and 5) education and workforce development. NREL is providing on-site expertise, including:

Learn more