NREL's Campus Construction Projects

We're enhancing our campuses with new facilities and collaborations to advance research in energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, renewable power technologies, and energy systems integration to create a clean energy future.

Our construction and renovation projects will enable more cross-disciplinary research and partnership opportunities and new ways to scale up global technologies for the marketplace.

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For more information, email us or call 303-275-4090.

Construction Impacts

NREL's Energy Materials and Processing at Scale facility—to be located on the east end of the laboratory's Golden, Colorado, campus—will be a 127,000-ft2 signature facility that rapidly minimizes barriers to scaling up new energy, materials, devices, and processes. The laboratory design will facilitate a multidisciplinary approach to materials R&D by providing opportunities for engineers, scientists, and industry partners to work together in shared laboratory facilities to greatly accelerate process scale-up and market adoption of the advanced energy materials needed for a clean energy transition.

Construction began in September 2024 and is anticipated to be completed in 2027.

Here's what our neighbors can expect in the coming months:

  • Construction will take place 7 a.m.–3:30 p.m. Monday–Friday. There may be occasional work on evenings or weekends due to inclement weather or extenuating circumstances.
  • There are no anticipated road closures in the community.
  • There are no anticipated impacts to utilities (water, gas, electricity) in the surrounding neighborhoods.
  • Expect increased worker vehicle traffic via the east entrance along Denver West Parkway, with peak activity 6–7:30 a.m. and 3:30–4 p.m.

In January 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy took possession of a section of Camp George West—a former military base just south of NREL's Golden, Colorado, campus—making the space a new NREL-managed resource known as the South Table Mountain Energy Park (STEP).

STEP will be a hub for startups, entrepreneurs, and new innovations to help move the latest research and products closer to commercialization.

NREL is working closely with the Colorado State Historic Preservation Office on a forthcoming STEP campus master plan that will outline short-, mid-, and long-term developments.

South Table Mountain campus.
Concept design rendering of the Energy Materials and Processing at Scale facility, due north (right) of the solar arrays above the Visitor Parking Lot on NREL's Golden, Colorado, campus. Rendering from SmithGroup
South Table Mountain Campus.
Buildings on the South Table Mountain Energy Park site.

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Last Updated Jan. 6, 2025