Energy Analysis News

Explore our archive of Energy Analysis news stories.

Dec. 20, 2019

Modeling Tomorrow's Energy Infrastructure Today: Researchers model electricity systems for future resource and climate uncertainty

A new modeling approach takes future climate and water resource conditions into account for long-term electricity generation infrastructure planning.

Dec. 18, 2019

Updated Standard Scenarios Outlook Models Possible Futures for U.S. Electricity Sector

A flagship NREL analysis project, the fifth annual Standard Scenarios Outlook models 36 possible projections for power sector evolution through the year 2050.

Dec. 12, 2019

PVWatts at 20: Measuring Success in Megawatts and by the Millions

Expanding solar energy’s reach, one estimate at a time. Meet PVWatts.

Dec. 11, 2019

Sunny with a Chance of Curtailment: NREL Simulates Possible Impacts of a Very-High-Solar Future

Analysts modeled how the future U.S. power system could operate with up to 55% solar energy penetration.

Dec. 5, 2019

REopt Lite Evolves To Address User Priorities

The latest REopt Lite upgrades address users' growing focus on providing backup power to sustain critical load during outages. Expanded resilience capabilities enable users to optimally size new diesel generation and better understand the benefits and trade-offs of resilience.

Dec. 2, 2019

Getting the Big Picture through Better Data: NREL Creates National Thermal Plant Performance Database for Grid Studies

New collection of historic U.S. power plant efficiency data can be used to more accurately model the integration of variable solar and wind energy on the grid.

Oct. 29, 2019

R&D 100 Awards Honor Two NREL Innovations

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) today won two R&D 100 Awards from R&D World magazine.

Oct. 23, 2019

A New Way to Measure Mobility Potential of Cities

The Mobility Energy Productivity (MEP) metric comprehensively quantifies the efficiency of transportation systems while taking time, affordability, and energy use into consideration.

Oct. 16, 2019

Modeling Modernity: NREL Proposes Key Revisions to the IEEE Reliability Test System

Outlined in their article in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, NREL researchers and colleagues proposed an update to the IEEE Reliability Test System (RTS) to bring it into the 21st century.

Oct. 1, 2019

Now Publicly Available, NREL's ReEDS Model Expands Access to Inform the Power Sector

What might the U.S. energy generation mix look like between now and the year 2050? Thanks to the now publicly available Regional Energy Deployment System model, or ReEDS for short, we can now explore how the power system will evolve under changing market conditions.

Sept. 11, 2019

Benefits of Agrivoltaics Across the Food-Energy-Water Nexus

In a recent article for Nature Sustainability, NREL's Lead Energy-Water-Land Analyst Jordan Macknick and co-authors investigated the potential benefits of co-located agriculture and solar photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure (dubbed “agrivoltaics”) on food production, irrigation water requirements, and energy production.

Aug. 22, 2019

Exploring Tomorrow's Energy Solutions, Together

NREL’s 2019 Partner Forum brought together energy industry leaders across multiple sectors to discuss today’s energy challenges and explore tomorrow’s potential solutions.

Aug. 1, 2019

Virtual Tools Developed at NREL Create Real-World Savings

NREL researchers are creating useful software applications designed to help highlight potential costs and savings associated with renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. In doing so, they hope to shorten the path to commercialization and increase overall adoption of those technologies.

Aug. 1, 2019

Updated Baseline Cost and Performance Data for Electricity Generation Technologies

NREL has released a 2019 update to the Annual Technology Baseline, a key source of reliable electricity generation technology cost and performance data used to support and inform electric sector analysis in the United States.

July 16, 2019

Beyond Lithium-Ion XII Imagines the Future of Next-Generation Batteries

NREL hosted twelfth annual symposium on energy storage.

July 16, 2019

NREL/Volvo Partnership Demonstrates Approach to Quantify Automated Vehicle Fuel Savings

The researchers leveraged on-road data from Volvo vehicles driving around Gothenburg, Sweden, and compared fuel efficiency for cars that used adaptive cruise control to those that did not.

July 10, 2019

Researchers Propose Techno-Ecological Synergy for Solar-Sustainability Win-Win

While solar generation helps to significantly reduce emissions in the energy sector, ground-mounted solar arrays can still lead to environmental impacts. NREL analysts argue that a new framework can help mitigate, or even avoid, environmental degradation.

July 10, 2019

Could Batteries Provide Peaking Capacity on the Grid? With Declining Cost Projections, NREL Analysts See Potential

Declining cost trajectory could pave the way for battery storage to serve peak electricity demand.

July 8, 2019

NREL Report Sheds Light on Community Choice Aggregation in the United States

Researchers provide early insights into the potential market impacts of the expansion of community choice aggregations, including how they might drive demand for renewable electricity.

June 18, 2019

New Analysis Adds Realism to Renewable Energy Research

Rebecca Hanes and team developed a new ground-breaking analysis, Quantifying Adoption Rates and Energy Savings over Time for Advanced Energy-Efficient Manufacturing Technologies, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

June 13, 2019

Scalable Solutions: NREL Researchers to Help ExxonMobil Slash Biofuels Emissions

As part of its partnership with ExxonMobil, NREL researchers will take a closer look at air pollutant emissions from the entire biofuels supply chain, as well as the resulting impacts on air quality.

June 7, 2019

Shining Light on Best Practices for Global Renewable Portfolio Standard Policies

Renewable portfolio standards, or RPSs, can be designed in numerous ways. New research details best practices for ensuring RPS policies meet their desired objectives, highlighting examples from around the globe.

April 29, 2019

NREL Partnership Successes Help Transform National Energy Landscape

NREL, which already has some 850 active partnership agreements with more than 500 partners in industry, government, and academia, is helping change the clean energy landscape along with its partners.

April 22, 2019

Your Renewable Energy Technology is Growing Old--What's Next?

While hundreds of millions of tons of trash continue to be dumped into American landfills annually, a growing percentage has been diverted to recycling centers since the first Earth Day in 1970. But these centers aren't set up for renewable energy technologies.

March 6, 2019

REopt Lite Adds Custom Electricity Rates and an Integrated Critical Load Builder

Building owners and energy managers looking to evaluate renewable energy and storage economics for their site can use REopt™ Lite's custom utility rate tariff capabilities and an integrated critical load profile builder—new features that allow a more detailed energy analysis without leaving the tool.

Feb. 19, 2019

Gallium Oxide Could Have Low Cost in Future, NREL Analysis Reveals

The findings reveal gallium oxide wafers could be three to five times cheaper to manufacture than another related technology, silicon carbide.

Jan. 10, 2019

Collaboration Works To Improve Variable Renewable Energy Modeling

A group of NREL researchers recently collaborated with expert modelers from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Electric Power Research Institute to improve the treatment of variable renewable energy, such as wind and solar, in the flagship planning models used by these research organizations.

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