April 2015
News Release: NREL Report Estimates Market Potential of Shared Solar and Discusses Relevant Securities Regulations
Analysis from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) finds that by making shared solar programs available to households and businesses that currently cannot host on-site photovoltaic (PV) systems shared solar could represent 32 to 49 percent of the distributed photovoltaic market in 2020.
The (Scientific) Flight of the Falcon
NREL and Laufer employ "Houdini" to teach radar how to detect birds near wind power plants.
Energy Department Announces New Tools for Hydrogen Fueling Infrastructure Deployment
The Energy Department has announced two new tools developed through H2USA to help address technical and financial barriers to hydrogen fueling infrastructure deployment. The tools, the the Hydrogen Financial Analysis Scenario Tool (H2FAST) and the Hydrogen Refueling Stations Analysis Model (HRSAM), were developed by NREL and Argonne National Laboratory respectively to address the key technical and financial barriers to hydrogen fueling infrastructure deployment. Additionally, NREL and Sandia National Laboratories published two task reports through the Hydrogen Fueling Infrastructure Research and Station Technology (H2FIRST) project, which supports H2USA by addressing critical R&D barriers to station deployment.
NREL and Partners Review Key Issues, Lessons Learned from U.S. Wind Integration Studies and Operating Practices
As a complement to DOE's recently released Wind Vision Report, a new paper summarizes the lessons learned from actual power systems operational practice, along with some of the most relevant and comprehensive wind integration studies conducted during the past several years.
NREL's ESIF Offers Equipment Testing on Grand Scale
NREL Power Systems Engineering Center Director Dr. Ben Kroposki spoke to Smart Grid Today about the unique capabilities of the Energy Systems Integration Facility.
NREL Teams with Southern California Gas to Launch First Power-to-Gas Project in U.S.
Demonstration projects will create and test a power-to-gas concept that uses electricity from renewable sources to make carbon-free hydrogen gas.
News Release: NREL Releases Report Describing Guidelines for PV Manufacturer Quality Assurance
The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has released an updated proposal that will establish an international quality standard for photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing. The document is intended for immediate use by PV manufacturers when producing modules on an industrial scale so they can increase investor, utility, and consumer confidence in PV system performance.
Assuring Solar Modules Will Last for Decades
NREL heads international effort to toughen standards, ensure reliability of solar PV systems.
News Release: NREL Fills Key Leadership Role for Energy Systems Security and Resilience
Dr. Erfan Ibrahim has joined the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory as director of Cyber Physical Systems Security and Resilience for NREL’s Energy Systems Integration directorate. This critical area of research and development addresses the challenges of integrating clean energy sources into the national energy infrastructure.
March 2015
News Release: Industry-backed Best Practices Guides Aim to Lower Financing Costs for Solar Energy Systems
The Solar Access to Public Capital (SAPC) working group has released new best practices guidelines for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, with the goal of increasing investor confidence in the long-term viability of PV systems. The guides — SAPC Best Practices in PV System Installation and SAPC Best Practices in PV Operations and Maintenance — were developed by SAPC subcommittees, each involving dozens of solar and finance entities.
Discovering Drop-In Biofuels to Leverage Petroleum Refineries
In the search for abundant and sustainable options to petroleum-derived fuels, biofuels stand out as a promising alternative. An NREL study is determining which biomass-derived oxygenates are most commercially feasible in drop-in fuels that are compatible with existing engines and fuel distribution.
News Release: NREL Director Announces His Retirement
Dr. Dan E. Arvizu today announced that he intends to retire at the end of September from his role as the Director and Chief Executive of the Energy Department’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado.
NREL's Newest PE-Licensed Engineers Commit to Sustainability
Engineers travel the globe to help save energy, improve lives.
News Release: NREL Tool Finds Effective Behind-the-Meter Energy Storage Configurations
The Energy Department’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has used the Battery Lifetime Analysis and Simulation Tool (BLAST) to confirm that energy storage for demand-charge management can deliver attractive economic benefits. The analysis paired recent utility rate structures with historic data on solar photovoltaic electricity generation and commercial facility loads to evaluate 6,860 unique scenarios. The results revealed that, in the absence of incentives, small battery systems reducing peak demand by 2.5 percent offer the most attractive return on investment.
Colorado High School Science Bowl Rescheduled
On March 7, Colorado high school students will rack their brains to quickly find answers to rapid-fire questions at the 25th Colorado High School Science Bowl. Competition rounds begin at 9 a.m. and will last until 12:30 p.m., at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), 15013 Denver West Parkway, Golden, CO.
February 2015
News Release: NREL Refines Method to Convert Lignin to Nylon Precursor
A new study from the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) demonstrates the conversion of lignin-derived compounds to adipic acid, an important industrial dicarboxylic acid produced for its use as a precursor to nylon, plasticizers, lubricants, polyesters, and other popular products and chemicals.
FAST Revs Up with a v8
Offshore and land-based wind turbine systems are subject to complex and harsh operating conditions. When designing systems for such conditions, wind technology developers need powerful tools. One such tool is the computer-aided engineering tool called FAST, developed and supported by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The laboratory has recently released an improved and expanded version of FAST that features a new modularization framework that boosts the tool’s power, robustness, and flexibility.
NREL Researchers Advance Wind Energy Systems Engineering
In recent years, researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have been making progress in multiple avenues of wind systems engineering. This includes the study of how to integrate wind energy engineering and cost models across wind plants, finding the important interactions between various subsystems to achieve a better understanding of how to improve system-level performance and cost reductions, and hosting international, collaborative workshops.
Guidelines Help Manage Risks and Encourage the Development of Marine and Hydrokinetic Technologies
Marine and hydrokinetic technologies convert the kinetic energy from ocean waves, tides, currents, and ocean thermal resources into electricity. The development and evolution of these technologies towards commercial and economic operation has proven to be a slow and expensive process. To help reduce the risks of industry failures and advance the development of current and new technologies at a lower cost and faster pace, the U.S. Department of Energy and National Renewable Energy Laboratory created a framework that provides a risk management methodology to identify and reduce risks during all stages of technology development and particularly prior to demonstration activities.
NREL's WIND Toolkit Provides the Data Needed to Conduct Power System Simulations
Researchers who conduct regional wind integration studies in the United States need to perform simulations of how the power system will operate under high-penetration scenarios. To do this they need detailed wind power output data from many locations. The wind data sets that are used in these studies must realistically reflect the ramping characteristics, spatial and temporal correlations, and capacity factors of the simulated wind plants, and must be time-synchronized with available load profiles.
Last Updated May 28, 2025