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.
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July 2024
July 18, 2024
IN² at 10 Years: Cohort 1 Participant Uses Liquid To Cool Computers
When NREL Senior Mechanical Engineer Eric Kozubal first learned about the LiquidCool's technology, he was eager to get to work on it through the first IN² cohort.
July 18, 2024
Farmers, Rural Businesses To Harvest Benefits of New Project Selections
A new crop of Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) award selections will benefit farmers and small rural businesses by focusing on how to remove market barriers to distributed wind turbine deployment in agricultural settings.
July 17, 2024
Into Another Dimension: Nanoscale Trilayer Exhibits Ultrafast Charge Transfer in Semiconductor Materials
Deriving inspiration from the natural process of photosynthesis, NREL researchers developed a mixed-dimensionality (2D/1D/2D) trilayer of semiconductors to enable exciton dissociation.
July 17, 2024
Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 2 Names Phase 1 Data Track Winners
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity announced nine Phase 1 Utility/Data Challenge track winning teams of the American-Made Digitizing Utilities Prize Round 2.
July 17, 2024
NREL Researchers Collaborate To Optimize Transmission Modeling Efficiency
Advanced computing plays a pivotal role in accelerating clean energy research at NREL, whether researchers need simulations of traffic systems, models of biomass conversion, or optimization of renewable energy implementation.
July 16, 2024
Sreekant Narumanchi Travels the Intersection of Heat Transfer, Power Electronics, and Electric Motors to Electrification of Vehicles
Sreekant Narumanchi, who leads NREL's Advanced Power Electronics and Electric Machines group, was chosen as one of NREL's Distinguished Researchers in 2024.
July 15, 2024
NREL Transportation Researchers Recognized for Teamwork, Leadership, and Expertise at DOE Annual Merit Review
Each year, awards are presented to individuals from Department of Energy national laboratories and other partner organizations for their contributions to overall program efforts and in recognition of their research, development, demonstration, and deployment achievements in specific areas.
July 15, 2024
Stellar Year for the Solar Market, at Home and Abroad
The year 2023, according to NREL analyst David Feldman, was a year of historic proportions in the solar power industry.
July 11, 2024
Offshore Wind Turbines Offer Path for Clean Hydrogen Production
Using electricity generated by offshore wind turbines as one pathway to split water to produce clean hydrogen may make economic sense, particularly along the U.S. Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, according to researchers at NREL.
July 11, 2024
NREL Research Dives Deeper Into the Mysteries of Energy Control in Electron-Bifurcating Enzymes
Since 2019, NREL senior scientist Cara Lubner and her team have made considerable progress toward mapping the energy landscape of an enzymatic reaction.
July 2, 2024
Rocketing to the Top: Kate Anderson Launched Her Career by Aiming High
As a young girl growing up in Connecticut, NREL's Strategy Lead Kate Anderson dreamed of becoming an astronaut.
July 2, 2024
GCxN Company's Feedstock Poised To Be More Economical and Versatile
Biotech entrepreneur and Hexas Biomass Founder and CEO Wendy Owens has brought her groundbreaking (pun intended) crop to the Shell GameChanger Accelerator Powered by NREL (GCxN).
July 2, 2024
Facilities Invited To Join New Hydropower Testing Network
The new Hydropower Testing Network connects hydropower technology developers with testing capability providers that can help developers advance their technologies toward commercialization.
July 1, 2024
Escaping the Lab Into the Sunlight: Research Examines Durability of Outdoor Perovskite Solar Cells
New research funded by the U.S. Department of Energy examines degradation mechanisms of PSCs under the unfiltered sunlight of the outdoors in comparison with widely used light-emitting diodes.
July 1, 2024
News Release: Optoelectronics Gain Spin Control From Chiral Perovskites and III-V Semiconductors
A research effort led by scientists at NREL has made advances that could enable a broader range of currently unimagined optoelectronic devices.
June 2024
June 28, 2024
NREL Explores Path To Increase Occupant Safety During Extreme Weather
Bitter cold temperatures. Unrelenting heat. Power outages that last for weeks. NREL researchers are planning for extreme weather by calculating what it will take to make the situation survivable.
June 28, 2024
A Five-Step Plan To Support Smooth Transitions in the Hydropower Workforce
With a new resource developed by NREL, hydropower organizations can better prepare for worker turnover and limit knowledge loss along the way.
June 27, 2024
NREL Partners With Industry Leaders To Prove Out Grid Integration Solutions
The U.S. Department of Energy has selected two new projects to benefit from a premier grid control evaluation capability at NREL.
June 27, 2024
NREL Small Business Commitment Spotlights US Department of Energy Program Success
Each year over 50% of all NREL subcontracts, approximately $60–$75 million, are awarded to small businesses.
June 26, 2024
Bridging the Solar Energy Gap Through Federal Assistance Programs
The number of residential solar photovoltaics installations continues to increase across the United States. But that increase is slower for low-income households, who made up 23% of solar adopters as of 2022.
June 26, 2024
International Solar Energy Leaders, Researchers Discuss Growing Role in World Energy and Shared Challenges for the Future at 4th Multiterawatt Workshop
Approximately 70 researchers from 14 countries gathered in California earlier this month to discuss the progress toward deploying multiple terawatts of solar power around the globe to transition to a sustainable energy system.
June 26, 2024
Electric Vehicles Grow in the Desert: Peer Learning Helps Sedona Plan for Charging Infrastructure
Seeking ways to build EV charging capacity, Sedona, Arizona participated in a peer-learning cohort through the U.S. Department of Energy's Clean Energy to Communities (C2C) program focused on planning and funding strategies for EV charging infrastructure deployment.
June 25, 2024
Plug Into Newly Released 2024 US Electricity Sector Data
The 2024 Electricity Annual Technology Baseline provides updated, easy-to-use data on the cost and performance of electricity generation technologies in the United States.
June 24, 2024
IN² at 10 Years: Cohort 1 Flow-Battery Creator Has the Power
Ten years ago, NREL researcher Shanti Pless suggested flow-battery company ESS Inc. apply to the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator and championed it through the process.
June 24, 2024
Juggling Motion: Jason Jonkman's Exploration of Movement Helped Him Become a Floating Wind Energy Expert
An interest in juggling paved the way for Jason Jonkman's offshore wind research and allowed him to become one of NREL's 2024 Distinguished Researchers.
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