The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the US specializes in the

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

energy efficiency Energy efficiency may refer to: * Energy efficiency (physics), the ratio between the useful output and input of an energy conversion process ** Electrical efficiency, useful power output per electrical power consumed ** Mechanical efficiency, a rat ...

, energy systems integration, and sustainable transportation. NREL is a

federally funded research and development center Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) are public-private partnerships that conduct research and development for the United States Government. Under Federal Acquisition Regulationbr>§ 35.017 FFRDCs are operated by univers ...

History

Establishment

During the

1973 oil crisis In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Eg ...

, soaring energy prices caused gasoline shortages and contributed significantly to inflation. US President

Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Ford assumed the p ...

openly recognized the need for greater energy independence at the September 1974

World Energy Conference The World Energy Council is a global forum for thought-leadership and tangible engagement with headquarters in London. Its mission is 'To promote the sustainable supply and use of energy for the greatest benefit of all people'. The idea for the fo ...

in Detroit. A month later, the

Solar Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Act of 1974 The Solar Energy Research, Development and Demonstration Act of 1974 (SERDDA) is legislation that the 93rd U.S. Congress enacted on October 26, 1974. It created two key programs: * The Solar Energy Coordination and Management Project * The So ...

was signed. Section 10 of the bill explicitly outlined the establishment of the Solar Energy Research Institute, which opened in 1977 and was operated by

Midwest Research Institute MRIGlobal is an American independent, not-for-profit, contract research organization based in Kansas City, Missouri, with regional offices in Virginia and Maryland. In addition to its own research laboratories, MRIGlobal operates research facilit ...

. Paul Rappaport was the founding director. It was the first time a national-scale effort had ever been made to advance solar power.

Before 1991

SERI's activities went beyond research and development in solar energy as it tried to popularize knowledge about already existing technologies, like biomass conversion,

passive solar In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unli ...

, and energy storage. During the first year of operation, thin-film solar cells achieved 10% efficiency. The next year, the Jimmy Carter administration passed the

Solar Photovoltaic Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 1978 Solar Photovoltaic Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 1978 is a United States statute authorizing the research and development of photovoltaic systems utilizing solar irradiance or sunlight as a source for electricity genera ...

. However, by this time, the national effort for an alternative energy source had turned towards nuclear energy. In 1979,

Three Mile Island accident The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, located on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Londonderry T ...

occurred, renewing a public interest in alternative renewable solutions, including solar energy.

1991 - present

In September 1991, the institute was designated a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy by President

George H.W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushBefore the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election, he was usually referred to simply as "George Bush" but became more commonly known as "George H. W. Bush", "Bush Senior," "Bush 41," and even "Bush th ...

, and its name was changed to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Renewed interest in energy problems improved the laboratory's position, but funding has fluctuated over the years. In 2011, anticipated congressional budget shortfalls led to a voluntary buyout program for 100 to 150 staff reductions, and in 2015 budget cuts led to staff layoffs and further buyouts. Martin Keller became NREL's ninth director in November 2015, and currently serves as both the director of the laboratory and the president of its operating contractor, Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC. He succeeded

Dan Arvizu Dan Arvizu is a mechanical engineer at the United States Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories, where he has taken on various roles over the course of more than 30 years. Arvizu is also an expert in energy materials, technology commerc ...

, who retired in September 2015 after 10 years in those roles.

Department of Energy funding

In fiscal year 2020, congressional appropriations for the Department of Energy contained $464.3 million for NREL. This total included the following amounts for its renewable energy technology programs: *

Solar energy Solar energy is the radiant energy from the Sun's sunlight, light and heat, which can be harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating) and solar architecture. It is a ...

: $122.4 million *

Wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

: $30.0 million *

Bioenergy Bioenergy is a type of renewable energy that is derived from plants and animal waste. The Biomass (energy), biomass that is used as input materials consists of recently living (but now dead) organisms, mainly plants. Thus, Fossil fuel, fossil fu ...

: $56.3 million *

Hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

and

fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...

s: $17.6 million *

Geothermal Geothermal is related to energy and may refer to: * Geothermal energy, useful energy generated and stored in the Earth * Geothermal activity, the range of natural phenomena at or near the surface, associated with release of the Earth's internal he ...

: $1.8 million *

Water power Hydropower (from Ancient Greek -, "water"), also known as water power or water energy, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kin ...

: $15.8 million

Commercialization and technology transfer

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) engages in technology transfer, working with private sector partners to facilitate the application of research in renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in practical settings. In recognition of its efforts in innovation and technology transfer, NREL has received numerous R&D 100 Awards. These awards acknowledge advancements in scientific research with potential market applications. Additionally, NREL offers an external user access program. This program is designed to enable researchers from outside the laboratory to utilize the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), providing them with an opportunity to collaborate with NREL’s staff in the development and evaluation of energy technologies.

National Center for Photovoltaics

The goal of the

photovoltaics Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commerciall ...

(PV) research done at NREL is to decrease the "nation's reliance on

fossil-fuel A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologi ...

generated electricity by lowering the cost of delivered electricity and improving the

efficiency Efficiency is the often measurable ability to avoid making mistakes or wasting materials, energy, efforts, money, and time while performing a task. In a more general sense, it is the ability to do things well, successfully, and without waste. ...

of PV

modules Module, modular and modularity may refer to the concept of modularity. They may also refer to: Computer science and engineering * Modular design, the engineering discipline of designing complex devices using separately designed sub-components ...

and

systems A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and is exp ...

." Photovoltaic research at NREL is performed under the National Center for Photovoltaics (NCPV). A primary mission of the NCPV is to support ongoing efforts of the DOE's SunShot Initiative, which wants to increase the availability of solar power at a cost competitive with other energy sources. The NCPV coordinates its research and goals with researchers from across the country, including the Quantum Energy and Sustainable Solar Technologies (QESST) Center and the Bay Area PV Consortium. NCPV also partners with many universities and other industry partners. NREL brings in dozens of students annually through the Solar University-National lab Ultra-effective Program (SUN UP), which was created to facilitate existing and new interactions between universities and the laboratory. The lab maintains a number of research partnerships for PV research.

Research and development

Some of the areas of PV R&D include the physical properties of PV panels, performance and reliability of PV, junction formation, and research into photo-electrochemical materials. Through this research, NREL hopes to surpass current technologies in efficiency and cost-competitiveness and reach the overall goal of generating electricity at $0.06/

kWh A kilowatt-hour (unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a common b ...

for

grid Grid, The Grid, or GRID may refer to: Space partitioning * Regular grid, a tessellation of space with translational symmetry, typically formed from parallelograms or higher-dimensional analogs ** Grid graph, a graph structure with nodes connec ...

-tied PV systems. NREL identifies the following as cornerstones to its PV R&D program: the Thin-Film Partnership and the PV Manufacturing R&D Project. The Thin Film Partnership Program at NREL coordinates national research teams of manufacturers, academics, and NREL scientists on a variety of subjects relating to thin-film PV. The research areas of the Thin Film Partnership Program include amorphous silicon (a-Si), copper indium diselenide (CuInSe2 or CIGS) and,

cadmium telluride Cadmium telluride (CdTe) is a stable crystalline compound formed from cadmium and tellurium. It is mainly used as the semiconducting material in cadmium telluride photovoltaics and an infrared optical window. It is usually sandwiched with ...

(CdTe), and module reliability. NREL's PV Manufacturing Research and Development Project is an ongoing partnership between NREL and private sector solar manufacturing companies. It started in 1991 as the Photovoltaic Manufacturing Technology (PVMaT) project and was extended and renamed in 2001 due to its success as a project. The overall goal of research done under the PV Manufacturing R&D Project is to help maintain a strong market position for US solar companies by researching ways to reduce costs to manufacturers and customers and improving the manufacturing process. It is estimated that the project has helped to reduce manufacturing cost for PV panels by more than 50%. Examples of achievements under the PV Manufacturing Research and Development Project include the development of a manufacturing process that increase the production of silicon solar modules by 8% without increasing costs and the development of a new boron coating process that reduces solar costs over traditional processes.

Testing

NREL is capable of providing testing and evaluation to the PV industry with indoor, outdoor, and field testing facilities. NREL is able to provide testing on long-term performance, reliability, and component failure for PV systems. NREL also has accelerated testing capabilities from both PV cells and system components to identify areas of potential long-term degradation and failure. The Photovoltaic Device Performance group at NREL is able to measure the performance of PV cells and modules with regard to a standard or customized reference set. This allows NREL to serve as independent facility for verifying device performance. NREL allows industry members to test and evaluate potential products, with the hope that it will lead to more cost effective and reliable technology. The overall goal is to help improve the reliability in the PV industry.

Deployment

NREL also seeks to raise public awareness of PV technologies through its deployment services. NREL provides a number of technical and non-technical publications intended to help raise consumer awareness and understanding of solar PV. Scientists at NREL perform research into energy markets and how to develop the solar energy market. They also perform research and outreach in the area of building-integrated PV. NREL is also an active organizer and sponsor in the DOE's

Solar Decathlon The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Decathlon is a collegiate competition, comprising 10 contests, that challenges student teams to design and build highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy. The winners are se ...

. NREL provides information on solar energy, beyond the scientific papers on research done at the lab. The lab provides publications on solar resources and manuals on different applications of solar technology, as well as a number of different solar resource models and tools. The lab also makes available a number of different solar resource data sets in its Renewable Resource Data Center.

Facilities

NREL's

campus houses several facilities dedicated to PV and biomass research. In the recently opened Science and Technology Facility, research is conducted on solar cells, thin films, and nanostructure research. NREL's Outdoor Test Facility allows researchers to test and evaluate PV technologies under a range of conditions, both indoor and outdoor. Scientists at NREL work at the Outdoor Test Facility to develop standards for testing PV technologies. At the Outdoor Test Facility NREL researchers calibrate primary reference cells for use in a range of applications. One of the main buildings for PV research at NREL is the Solar Energy Research Facility (SERF). Examples of research conducted at the SERF include semiconductor material research, prototype solar cell production, and measurement and characterization of solar cell and module performance. Additionally, the roof at the SERF is able to house ten PV panels to evaluate and analyze the performance of commercial building-integrated PV systems. Additionally, R&D in PV materials and devices, measurement and characterization, reliability testing are also conducted at the SERF. At the Solar Radiation Research Laboratory, NREL has been measuring solar radiation and meteorological data since 1984.

National Bioenergy Center

The National Bioenergy Center (NBC) was established in October 2000. "The National Bioenergy Center is composed of four technical groups and a technical lead for partnership development with industry. Partnership development includes work performed at NREL under Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA), Technical Service Agreements (TSA), Analytical Service Agreements (ASA), and Work for Others (WFO) contract research for DOE's industry partners." The main focus of the research is to convert biomass into biofuels/biochemical intermediates via both biochemical and thermochemical processes. The National Bioenergy Center is currently divided into certain technology and research areas: * Applied Science * Catalysis and Thermochemical Sciences and Engineering R&D * Biochemical Process R&D * Biorefinery Analysis Some of the current projects are in the following areas: * Biomass characteristics * Biochemical conversion * Thermochemical conversion * Chemical and catalyst science * Integrated biorefinery processes * Microalgal biofuels * Biomass process and sustainability analysis The Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility (IBRF) houses multiple pilot-scale process trains for converting biomass to various liquid fuels at a rate of 450–900 kg (0.5–1 ton) per day of dry biomass. Unit operations include feedstock washing and milling, pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation, distillation, and solid-liquid separation. The heart of the Thermochemical Users Facility (TCUF) is the 0.5-metric-ton-per-day Thermochemical Process Development Unit (TCPDU), which can be operated in either a pyrolysis or gasification mode.

National Wind Technology Center

NREL has produced many technologies that impact the wind industry at a global level. The National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) is home of 20 patents and has created software such as (FAST), simulation software that is used to model wind turbines. The NWTC is located on NREL's Flatirons Campus, which is at the base of the foothills just south of

Boulder In geology, a boulder (or rarely bowlder) is a rock fragment with size greater than in diameter. Smaller pieces are called cobbles and pebbles. While a boulder may be small enough to move or roll manually, others are extremely massive. In ...

, Colorado. The campus comprises field test sites, test laboratories, industrial high-bay work areas, machine shops, electronics and instrumentation laboratories, and office areas. The NWTC is also home to NREL's Distributed Energy Resources Test Facility (DERTF). The DERTF is a working laboratory for interconnection and systems integration testing. This facility includes generation, storage, and interconnection technologies as well as electric power system equipment capable of simulating a real-world electric system. The center is the first facility in the United States with a controllable grid interface test system that has fault simulation capabilities and allows manufacturers and system operators to conduct the tests required for certification in a controlled laboratory environment. It is the only system in the world that is fully integrated with two dynamometers and has the capacity to extend that integration to turbines in the field and to a matrix of electronic and mechanical storage devices, all of which are located within close proximity on the same site.

Sustainable transportation and mobility research

NREL pioneers world-class research accelerating the development of sustainable mobility technologies and strategies for passenger and freight transportation, with a focus on decarbonizing the transportation sector and combating climate change. The only national laboratory solely dedicated to energy efficiency and renewable energy, NREL helps its industry partners create innovative components, fuels, infrastructure, and integrated systems for battery electric, fuel cell, and other alternative fuel on-road, off-road, and non-road vehicles, including emerging technologies for aviation, rail, and marine applications. NREL's integrate
modeling and analysis tools
help overcome technical barriers and accelerate the development of advanced transportation technologies and systems that maximize energy savings and on-road performance.

Transportation and mobility research areas

Directors

The following persons served as director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory or its predecessor, Solar Energy Research Institute:

Notes

References

External links

Th
Internet of Things
(IoT) is a revolutionary concept that interconnects everyday objects and devices through the Internet. By embedding sensors and communication capabilities into these physical entities, the IoT enables data collection, analysis, and real-time communication, ushering in a new era of efficiency, automation, and enhanced user experiences. {{Use American English, date = March 2019 1977 establishments in Colorado Research institutes established in 1977 Energy research institutes Renewable energy organizations based in the United States United States Department of Energy national laboratories Federally Funded Research and Development Centers Buildings and structures in Golden, Colorado Research institutes in Colorado Battelle Memorial Institute Golden, Colorado 1973 oil crisis Presidency of Gerald Ford