Grid Modernization News

Sep 14, 2021, 18:00 by Sean Marchant

President Joe Biden visited NREL's Flatirons Campus to speak with NREL leadership and to learn about the laboratory's research facilities, capabilities, and critical initiatives housed on the Flatirons Campus. During the visit, the president spoke to a livestream audience about his plans on infrastructure, environmental justice, and how to tackle the climate crisis.

Sep 13, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

According to the Offshore Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition, written by a team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy and NREL, the U.S. offshore wind pipeline made gale-force gains between 2019 and 2020.

Sep 9, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

A 24-acre family farm purchased by Jack Stingerie in 1972 has now evolved into a model for how to produce energy and food in tandem. Multiple agrivoltaics activities including crop production, pollinator habitat, ecosystem services, and pasture grass for grazing are being researched across Jack's Solar Garden in Longmont, Colorado.

Sep 8, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

This month, DOE and NREL officially announced the five teams that earned a spot in the fifth and final Waves to Water Prize competition stage, DRINK. Now, these five have 180 days to prepare their devices for an open-ocean trial at the Coastal Studies Institute in North Carolina in April 2022.

Sep 8, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

National Alliance for Water Innovation's new master roadmap guides industries to invest in low-cost, low-energy ways to treat salt water and recycle wastewater.

Sep 7, 2021, 18:00 by Kassidy Gamble

The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), managed by NREL, has reached a milestone: Its portfolio of startup companies has raised more than $1.1 billion in external funding since joining IN2. This translates to the companies raising $95 for every dollar invested in them by the Wells Fargo Foundation.

Sep 6, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

The NREL Foundation will bring in funding that otherwise would be unavailable to the laboratory and enable access to new sources of nonfederal funding. As donors contribute to the foundation, money will be aggregated and earmarked to fund specific research projects at NREL.

Sep 6, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

NREL researchers listened to the wind for hours to determine how rotating wind turbines affected their sound output. To their surprise, the next generation of wind plants could both create more energy and less noise pollution.

Sep 1, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

A new webinar series from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in collaboration with the Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC) aims to raise awareness about all aspects of security and help utilities develop a well-rounded cybersecurity program.

Aug 31, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

NREL is collaborating with Idaho National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories to develop FlexPower, a colocated, variable generation hybrid power plant enhanced with energy storage, stationed at the Flatirons Campus.

Aug 30, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

NREL will lead the Department of Energy's new Universal Interoperability for Grid-Forming Inverters Consortium to develop a universal set of guidelines enabling seamless integration of inverter-based resources like solar, wind, batteries, and electric vehicles.

Aug 30, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

Wind, solar, and battery storage appear to be a winning combination for clean electricity systems, but to make the leap to a sustainable energy system, another ingredient is necessary—low-carbon fuels.

Aug 29, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

The winners of the Spring 2021 Geothermal Collegiate Competition were announced.

Aug 29, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

Researchers at NREL are in the late stages of prototype testing a game-changing new thermal energy storage technology that uses inexpensive silica sand as a storage medium—known as ENDURING—a reliable, cost-effective, and scalable solution that can be sited anywhere.

Aug 29, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

NREL performed a first-of-its-kind assessment of opportunities for grid-scale energy storage in South Asia over the next three decades.

Aug 29, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

Electric vehicle industry experts and scientists at NREL are at work on a new high-power charging standard for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles called the Megawatt Charging System (MCS).

Aug 26, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

The American-Made E-ROBOT Prize Phase 1 winners are transforming existing U.S. homes and buildings with a sweeping portfolio of advanced robotics innovations.

Aug 26, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

The latest collaboration between NREL and NASA will evaluate the potential use of perovskite solar cells in space and assess the durability of materials used in those cells.

Aug 25, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

One of the challenges of aggregating solar energy data from different sources into studies is knowing whether the data uses consistent assumptions. The Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) resolves this challenge by creating consistent assumptions for all electric generation technologies cost and performance data, including solar.

Aug 23, 2021, 18:00 by User Not Found

With support from the U.S. DOE Water Power Technologies Office, NREL researchers are developing the Framework for Linked Analysis of Streamflow and Hydropower (FLASH), a systems-engineering-based approach that will improve hydropower's representation in grid operations modeling.