Grid Modernization News

Nov 21, 2017, 17:00 by User Not Found

William Tumas, an associate laboratory director for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), has been elected a fellow by the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Nov 20, 2017, 17:00 by User Not Found

A new article by NREL researchers summarizes the first full-scale assessment of operating conditions that may generate white etching cracks in the bearings of wind turbine gearboxes--one of the most common causes of gearbox failure.

Nov 20, 2017, 17:00 by User Not Found

As cities and states continue to explore mobility options, new fuel and vehicle adoption will play a large part in fulfilling that vision. Two new guides from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provide insights for informing clean transportation project management practices and implementing these types of projects successfully.

Nov 15, 2017, 17:00 by User Not Found

The director of the Materials Science Center at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).

Nov 13, 2017, 17:00 by Wayne Hicks

NREL's QCORD project poised to help auto industry ramp up production

Nov 13, 2017, 17:00 by User Not Found

NREL's Energy Storage and REopt Teams are recipients of a $525k monetary award to commercialize building-integrated energy storage control strategies, working with private industry partner, Eaton Corporation. These funds from the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) at the Office of Technology Transition (OTT) are part of 19.7 million in total funding provided to help businesses move promising energy technologies from the Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Laboratories to the marketplace, encompassing 54 projects across 12 National Laboratories and involving more than 30 private-sector partners.

Nov 7, 2017, 17:00 by User Not Found

A Colorado firm participating in the latest Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator Program is partnering with NREL to refine its building energy management control systems--but there's a twist.

Nov 6, 2017, 17:00 by User Not Found

New State-of-the-Art Equipment Expands Research Capabilities

Nov 2, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

Power plants that require water for cooling provide 85% of U.S. electricity generation and need large volumes of water at sufficiently cool temperatures. Researchers from NREL, City College of New York, and Sandia National Laboratories evaluated U.S. thermoelectric plants under possible future climates and performance within power grid sub-regions and published their findings in Nature Climate Change.

Nov 1, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

An undergraduate intern's contributions during a summer internship at NREL are helping researchers maintain homeowner comfort while using less energy and, ultimately, easing the burden on aging grid infrastructure.

Oct 31, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

Increasing the penetration of variable energy sources such as solar and wind energy in the grid without introducing heavy curtailment does not require costly, very-long-duration storage.

Oct 31, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently announced six new contracts for Round 5 of the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Distributed Wind Competitiveness Improvement Project.

Oct 29, 2017, 18:00 by Jamie Wiebe

NREL research supports emerging offshore wind industry.

Oct 26, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) established a new world efficiency record for quantum dot solar cells, at 13.4 percent.

Oct 26, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

NREL is Helping to Safely Power Our World One Controlled Explosion at a Time

Oct 25, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

In the U.S. engineering world, R&D 100 Awards are the equivalent of Oscars, and the Engineer Collaborate to Innovate Award is the United Kingdom (UK) version on the other side of the pond. In September, NREL partners from University College London (UCL), along with NASA, the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF), and the UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL), won an Engineer Collaborate to Innovate Award in the category of Safety & Security for lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery safety research using NREL's patented, R&D Award-winning Battery Internal Short Circuit (ISC) Device.

Oct 24, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) reported significant advances in the thermoelectric performance of organic semiconductors based on carbon nanotube thin films that could be integrated into fabrics to convert waste heat into electricity or serve as a small power source.

Oct 24, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

Shortening recharge times may diminish range anxiety and increase electric vehicle (EV) market viability. Therefore, speeding up battery charging is crucial to improving the convenience of owning and driving an electric vehicle (EV). The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is collaborating with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and industry stakeholders to identify the technical, infrastructure, and economic requirements for establishing a national extreme fast charging (XFC) network.

Oct 23, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

New research shows how to increase reliability of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cells. Key to the improvement is the use of photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy to identify defects in the solar cell that lower its efficiency and cause degradation.

Oct 23, 2017, 18:00 by User Not Found

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has entered into a license agreement with MicroLink Devices, Inc. (Niles, IL) to commercialize NREL's patented inverted metamorphic (IMM) multijunction solar cells.