News and Feature Stories
The following news stories take an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at how NREL is advancing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies.
June 2023
June 8, 2023
Clean Cities Thrives for 30 Years as Model for Collaborative Technology Deployment
A long-standing federal effort to decarbonize transportation proves how advanced technologies can make meaningful, real-world impacts by intertwining national goals and initiatives with local, community-based actions.
June 8, 2023
Digital-Twin Project Green-Lights Traffic Congestion Improvements
The Chattanooga Digital Twin Project, a collaboration between NREL and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, aimed to reduce transportation-based energy emissions and commuting delays in the city using advanced computing.
June 8, 2023
How Deep Is Your Ocean Love?
To celebrate National Ocean Month, we spoke to three water power researchers whose lives and work revolve around the 70% of our planet that is covered in ocean.
June 7, 2023
Collegiate Competitions Supercharge the Future Clean Energy Workforce
College students showcased their work in water power and wind energy at the final events for three DOE collegiate competitions: the inaugural Hydropower Collegiate Competition, fourth annual Marine Energy Collegiate Competition, and 10th annual Collegiate Wind Competition.
June 5, 2023
NREL Power Electronics Researcher Wins ASME Avram Bar-Cohen Memorial Medal
Sreekant Narumanchi, who leads NREL's advanced power electronics and electric machines research, has been awarded the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Avram Bar-Cohen Memorial Medal.
June 5, 2023
NREL's Gallium Oxide Power Module Represents Innovation on Nearly Every Front
Faisal Khan, chief researcher of power electronics at NREL, is leading a transformational project to revolutionize the power electronics systems within electric vehicles and for high-power, high-voltage, industrial-scale power conversion. How? With a smart, rugged, and wireless gallium oxide power module.
June 1, 2023
News Release: Heliostat Consortium Announces Funding Awards Aimed at Lowering Costs and Barriers to Widespread Heliostat Deployment
NREL and Sandia National Laboratories announced seven awardees from a request for proposals aimed at achieving DOE's goals for heliostat cost reduction, sustained multifaceted innovation, and improved solar field performance.
May 2023
May 31, 2023
NREL Collaborates With Volvo Group To Chart Course Toward Zero-Emission Commercial Vehicles
In collaboration with Volvo Group, NREL researchers charted a path forward for achieving a zero-emission future for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. Together, the industry/research team explored the current status and mapped the opportunity space for various technologies that could help turn that vision into reality.
May 30, 2023
Delegation From Bangladesh, NREL's Longest-Running USAID Country Partner, Touches Down in Colorado
Visitors from the USAID Bangladesh mission, the longest running country-partner program in the USAID-NREL Partnership, visited NREL's world-class facilities.
May 24, 2023
Q&A With Andriy Zakutayev: Materials Architect Builds New Energy-Efficient Devices One Atom at a Time
As a materials scientist at NREL, Andriy Zakutayev manufactures materials to find new ways to control electrons, helping them carry electricity inside computers, solar panels, and smartphones.
May 23, 2023
NREL Adds Lab Space With New Building, Preps Other Projects
NREL's newest building, the Research and Innovation Laboratory (RAIL), which will house multipurpose lab space, is the first laboratory building to open at NREL's Golden, Colorado, campus since the fall of 2013.
May 22, 2023
News Release: Inflation Reduction Act Invests $150 Million in NREL Projects
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that NREL will begin work on a series of additions and improvements to two of its campuses made possible by $150 million in funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA).
May 18, 2023
NREL Foundation Creates New Opportunities, Enables Nontraditional Funding Sources To Support Research and Initiatives
The NREL Foundation enables philanthropists to seed and drive important research and initiatives in partnership with NREL more easily. And although the NREL Foundation includes NREL in its name and mission, the foundation is a separate, board-governed entity that is not controlled by or attached to NREL.
May 18, 2023
Piloting Future Fuels: Calvin Mukarakate Sees a Problem, Solves a Problem
As a group manager in NREL's Bioenergy Science and Technology Directorate, Calvin Mukarakate, with a world-class team of biofuel engineers and scientists, is applying his mind to realize an important dream: commercializing processes for making billions of gallons of low-carbon sustainable aviation fuel.
May 16, 2023
Industry Growth Forum 2023: Faster, Smarter, More Connected
In its 28th year, the IGF is the premier event for cleantech entrepreneurs, investors, and partners from industry and the public sector to build relationships, showcase innovative technologies, and identify disruptive business solutions.
May 15, 2023
New Water Treatment Technology Could Help Recycle Even Super Salty Waters
An emerging form of water treatment could be the most cost-effective way to produce clean drinking water from super salty wastewaters from agricultural runoff, groundwater, and more, according to a new study.
May 10, 2023
A Pectin-Synthesizing Enzyme May Help Trees Weather Storms. Could It Be Key to More Sustainable Bioproducts?
Researchers from NREL, the University of Georgia, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered the biological mechanism involved in making one specific component of pectin: galactan.
May 10, 2023
Meet the Researcher: Katherine Hurst, Hydrogen
Katherine Hurst's career is dedicated to investigating how to make hydrogen more affordable and accessible to use across multiple energy sectors.
May 10, 2023
DOE Announces RFP Aimed at Community-Based Retrofit Solutions
A new Building America program is expected to bolster efforts to decarbonize existing U.S. residential housing.
May 5, 2023
Solar Decathlon 2023 Winners Take Zero-Energy Design and Construction to Next Level
The 2023 winners of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, DOE's longest-running student competition, are leading the clean energy revolution by designing and constructing better buildings.
May 5, 2023
Technology Transfer Working Group Advances Commercialization of National Laboratory Innovations
In mid-April, DOE's Technology Transfer Working Group held its two-day, spring meeting at NREL's Golden, Colorado, campus, where a full agenda of speakers, including DOE Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of Office of Technology Transitions Vanessa Chan presented.
May 5, 2023
Analysis Points to Massive Photovoltaic Deployment To Meet Decarbonization Target
An "unprecedented ramp-up of production capacity" over the next two decades is needed to provide enough solar power to completely decarbonize the global electrical system, but that goal can be achieved, according to an analysis led by researchers at NREL.
May 4, 2023
NREL Model Cuts Through Complexity of Deploying Electric Buses at Airports
A new modeling framework may help Dallas Fort Worth International Airport—and others in the future—design electric bus deployment strategies.
May 3, 2023
News Release: 6 Earn Top Awards at 2023 NREL Industry Growth Forum
NREL gave awards to six top cleantech innovators at the sold-out 2023 NREL Industry Growth Forum on May 1–3, 2023. In its 28th year, the event provides a forum for cutting-edge technologies aiming to catapult the world forward with clean energy solutions.
May 3, 2023
The Winds of Change Keep Blowing
A panel of NREL wind experts joined an April 6 panel at NREL's Flatirons Campus, expanding on the tales included in NREL's "Clean Energy Innovators" book by Ernie Tucker.
