Program News
Access news stories from NREL's research programs.
March 18, 2024
As a child immersed in the science of NASA, Amy Robertson was bound to end up an engineer—an aerospace engineer, to be exact. At NREL, she has traded in her love of the cosmos for the delightfully challenging dynamics of floating offshore wind energy.
March 18, 2024
The San Diego Association of Governments has ambitious plans to make local progress toward California's goal of carbon neutrality by 2045.
March 13, 2024
Fossil Ridge High School emerged victorious in the 2024 Colorado High School Science Bowl, continuing its winning streak for the fourth year in a row by narrowly besting second-place finisher Stargate Charter High School.
March 13, 2024
A new report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory explores investment opportunities in hydropower.
March 8, 2024
Alec Schnabel is working to advance one especially powerful part of marine energy technologies: their electronic guts.
March 7, 2024
Historically, photovoltaic (PV) modules have demonstrated high reliability, making them a dependable and growing part of global decarbonization efforts.
March 7, 2024
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has launched the new National Distributed Wind Network and complementary Distributed Wind Energy Resource Hub.
March 7, 2024
A new approach to grid planning could make it possible to power your home with the nation's best and lowest-cost wind and solar energy, no matter where you live.
March 7, 2024
An important consideration for electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft is where they will charge and whether the existing power grid infrastructure can accommodate this demand.
March 7, 2024
As a polymer scientist and the chief technology officer of the NREL-led BOTTLE consortium, Knauer is responsible for helping solve one of the world's greatest challenges--plastic pollution.
March 5, 2024
Combined, two first-in-the-world products—NREL's ALTRIOS rail optimization software and Parallel Systems' autonomous battery-electric rail vehicles—aim to help shift a portion of the freight currently carried by on-road trucks to rail, catalyzing decarbonization across the whole transportation sector.
March 4, 2024
Over the past year, NREL and industry partner Nextracker teamed up to advance the reliability of photovoltaic (PV) tracker technologies during severe weather events.
March 4, 2024
New NREL research is providing first-of-its-kind modeling to help curb the current shortage of distribution transformers and ensure a reliable and resilient power grid.
March 1, 2024
Forty teams from 37 collegiate institutions are advancing to the final stage of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon® 2024 Design Challenge based on their cutting-edge, zero-energy building designs.
March 1, 2024
When the third cohort of Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project communities was announced in 2023, the inclusion of Molokai, Hawaii, caught the eye of Bri Gabel, a sustainability coordinator for the City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska.
Feb. 29, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on Feb. 20 honored staffers from NREL for their work on five major projects with far-reaching implications.
Feb. 29, 2024
The U.S. energy transition is gaining speed, accelerated by government renewable energy goals and billions of dollars through the Inflation Reduction Act. As we race toward a greener future, understanding the potential adverse effects of renewable energy technologies before they are deployed has never been more critical.
Feb. 29, 2024
The REopt team at NREL has significantly enhanced the publicly available REopt web tool and its underlying open-source code, providing more powerful capabilities.
Feb. 29, 2024
RunZero was selected as the first solution provider to participate in Cohort 2, through which their technology will be evaluated in the Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES) Cyber Range.
Feb. 29, 2024
Over the next 12 months, BOTTLE will scale the process to produce several pounds of PHA fiber, which The North Face will test and evaluate for use in its product lines.
Feb. 29, 2024
A next-generation biorefinery model holds the potential to produce biofuels and chemicals through a process that researchers say has proven to be more efficient in converting plant biomass.
Feb. 28, 2024
Pathways to sustainable biofuels are within view as computational models solve key challenges.
Feb. 28, 2024
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the winners of the first phase of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Clean Energy Education Prize Partnerships Track.
Feb. 27, 2024
The city of Philadelphia has pledged carbon neutrality by 2050, and the State and Local Planning for Energy (SLOPE) Platform is illustrating opportunities to reach that goal equitably.
Feb. 27, 2024
Tools help energy leaders learn essential skills in modeling power systems and provide a "how-to" guide on operating and maintaining battery energy storage systems.
Feb. 27, 2024
NREL is working with the Kern Community College District in a partnership that aims to bring more education and training opportunities for clean energy technologies into the communities.
Feb. 27, 2024
India is transforming its power system, with distributed energy resources playing a major role in the country’s decarbonization journey. NREL grid analysts Kapil Duwadi and Erik Pohl discuss their roles on a team working with India’s state utilities to manage rapid distributed energy resource growth with customized tools and solutions to ensure safe and reliable grid integration.
Feb. 27, 2024
Senior polymer science researcher and group manager
Nicholas Rorrer currently leads a team of NREL researchers working to replace the heavy, resource-intensive steel parts in vehicles with recyclable carbon fiber composites.
Feb. 26, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has issued a request for proposals under the Competitiveness Improvement Project to support commercialization and market expansion of small and medium wind turbine technology.
Feb. 26, 2024
A noticeable change filled the air this summer—an actual change in air quality. Wildfires in Canada produced smoke-filled skies and wood-burnt, chemically scented air.
Feb. 21, 2024
In NREL's latest Manufacturing Masterminds Q&A, Kerry Rippy explains why she chose chemistry over literature, why carbon capture cannot be our only decarbonization solution, and how the mining industry could reduce emissions with the rocks it already digs up.
Feb. 20, 2024
Transit and school bus fleets across the nation are working hard to incorporate clean transportation solutions that help communities meet decarbonization goals and improve local health outcomes.
Feb. 20, 2024
Through its IN2 demonstration, NREL is helping BlocPower assess how its technical capabilities can perform in the field.
Feb. 19, 2024
Angel McCoy started her career as a meteorologist, which put her on the path that led to her current role at NREL supporting the regulatory process for offshore wind energy in the United States.
Feb. 19, 2024
The Distributed Energy Resource Cybersecurity Framework (DER-CF) emerges as a crucial tool in assessing and fortifying solar cybersecurity, offering a comprehensive platform for self-assessment and addressing vulnerabilities in behind-the-meter DER systems, with ongoing enhancements promising a more secure energy future.
Feb. 15, 2024
The winners of the U.S. Department of Energy 2023 Geothermal Collegiate Competition rose to the top by innovating to meet community energy needs through clean, renewable geothermal heating and cooling.
Feb. 13, 2024
DOE tapped NREL to support a new $15 million research effort to improve the measurement, reporting, and verification of carbon dioxide removal technologies, an industry with the potential to help mitigate climate change by addressing existing carbon emissions and removing them from the atmosphere.
Feb. 12, 2024
Solar energy can provide opportunities for renters to develop equity through community solar projects or create avenues for workforce development, lower utility bills, and increased energy resilience.
Feb. 9, 2024
The new Powered By webinar series hosted by NREL's Grid Planning and Analysis Center (GPAC) can be your new go-to resource.
Feb. 8, 2024
A research team led by NREL recently received funding for their project that will study and model the behavior of microbes in bioreactors and reasons for potential failures at industrial scale.
Feb. 5, 2024
The Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) for Technology Transfer recently awarded NREL Director Martin Keller its 2024 Laboratory Director of the Year Award.
Feb. 5, 2024
For its demonstration with IN², CorePower is partnering with Eaton, a power management company, to test a transformer designed for an electric vehicle charging application, especially mass EV charging for things like vehicle fleets.
Feb. 1, 2024
In a new study, NREL researchers analyzed the benefits and drawbacks of promising marine carbon management techniques.
Feb. 1, 2024
This year's AlgaePrize finalist teams include students from high schools, community colleges, and universities from 11 states across the United States and Puerto Rico.
Jan. 30, 2024
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition announced today that 60 teams from 53 schools are advancing as finalists in the Class of 2023–2024, including 17 teams from 17 schools that joined the competition for the one-semester division since December.
Jan. 29, 2024
Shashank Yellapantula, senior staff scientist in NREL's Computational Science Center, was recognized as a 2024 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Associate Fellow.
Jan. 26, 2024
A new analysis from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and NREL found that installing geothermal heat pumps in around 70% of U.S. buildings could save as much as 593 terawatt-hours of electricity generation annually.
Jan. 26, 2024
In the latest installment of the Tell Me Something Grid series, NREL's Paul Denholm shares what you need to know about the reliability of the U.S. power grid and why renewable energy can keep the lights on.
Jan. 25, 2024
Meet the four teams competing to create materials that can out-conduct pure copper in the $4.8 million Conductivity-enhanced materials for Affordable, Breakthrough Leapfrog Electric and thermal applications (CABLE) Conductor Manufacturing Prize.
Jan. 24, 2024
A massive data set of photovoltaic system performance quantifies the small but significant impacts of extreme weather and long-term degradation, with important lessons for the PV industry.
Jan. 22, 2024
The new $5 million SOLVE IT Prize will support development of innovative local clean energy solutions with heavy community involvement.
Jan. 22, 2024
As a kid, Genevieve Starke dreamt of becoming a con artist. Naturally, the little girl from Pennsylvania decided to pivot her dream to a field where rule-following was a little more appreciated. She picked engineering.
Jan. 19, 2024
Mithat John Kisacikoglu has been tapped to lead the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transportation Systems Committee (TSC), which focuses on electrification of the entire transportation sector.
Jan. 18, 2024
DOE announced the Phase 1 winners of the Wind Turbine Materials Recycling Prize. This $5.1 million, two-phase competition aims to boost a sustainable U.S. recycling industry for two high-impact categories of wind turbine materials: fiber-reinforced composites and rare earth elements.
Jan. 18, 2024
NREL recently bid farewell to a 100-kilowatt distributed wind turbine prototype on NREL's Flatirons Campus. The turbine's removal signals the beginning of new, expanded distributed wind research capabilities for the laboratory.
Jan. 18, 2024
In just three years as a researcher at NREL, K. Shankari successfully enabled communities to collect impactful multimodal data and went on detail to the U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation to ensure the reliable buildout of a national electric vehicle charging network.
Jan. 16, 2024
Nicole Mendoza is building extra-sustainable clean energy technologies, including kelp-like wave energy devices that mimic her beloved nature.
Jan. 16, 2024
A newly patented kind of energy generator could be woven into fabrics, building walls, or roads to form what their inventors call "metamaterials."
Jan. 12, 2024
The United States is poised for a clean energy boom, with the new investments flowing from 2021's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act expected to unlock around $3 trillion in clean energy and energy efficiency investments.
Jan. 11, 2024
NREL has awarded $1.8 million to fund seven projects to support the Cadmium Telluride Accelerator Consortium.
Jan. 11, 2024
To understand how things work, we must think small. Really small. Processes that affect how materials appear or behave happen at the atomic level. That is a key place for researchers to start, but such atomic-scale challenges are difficult because they require that researchers solve the underlying equations of quantum physics, which are computationally intensive and expensive.
Jan. 11, 2024
A new crop of semifinalists has been selected to move on to the Set! Contest in the American-Made Solar Prize Round 7.
Jan. 10, 2024
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office announced 25 Phase 1 winning teams, each receiving a $50,000 cash prize and advancing to Phase 2 of the competition.
Jan. 9, 2024
The annual suite of electricity system scenarios shows there could be fewer emissions, more renewables, and clean energy tax credits continued through 2050.
Jan. 9, 2024
Dany Tome, a graduate student at the University of South-Eastern Norway, spent five weeks at NREL as part of a larger partnership between Norway and the United States. As part of his internship, Tome researched hydropower, one of the world's biggest sources of renewable energy.
Jan. 4, 2024
Transportation and mobility researchers will showcase their latest research at the 103rd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Jan. 7–11, 2024 in Washington, D.C.
Jan. 3, 2024
Three NREL researchers recently had the opportunity to contribute to the landmark Fifth National Climate Assessment, sharing NREL’s expertise and learning from other leaders at the table.