National Renewable Energy Laboratory (DOD)
NREL launches interactive tool for developing a cleaner energy future
January 15, 2013 2:20 pm | News | CommentsThe U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has created an energy analysis tool to help individuals and educators experiment with future energy use scenarios. The interactive Buildings, Industry, Transportation, Electricity, and Transportation Scenarios (BITES) allows users to explore how changes in energy demand and supply can impact carbon dioxide emissions and the current U.S. energy trajectory.
A new point of reference for offshore energy development
January 8, 2013 12:32 pm | News | CommentsA new U.S. Department of Energy research facility could help bring the U.S. closer to generating power from the winds and waters along America's coasts and help alleviate a major hurdle for offshore wind and ocean power development.
NREL to help convert methane to liquid diesel
January 7, 2013 10:16 am | News | CommentsThe U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will help develop microbes that convert methane found in natural gas into liquid diesel fuel, a novel approach that if successful could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower dependence on foreign oil.
R&D 100 award-winning PV cell pushes efficiency higher
December 30, 2012 9:00 am | News | CommentsIt takes outside-the-box thinking to outsmart the solar spectrum and set a world record for solar cell efficiency. The solar spectrum has boundaries and immutable rules. No matter how much solar cell manufacturers want to bend those rules, they can't. So how can we make a solar cell that has a higher efficiency than the rules allow? NREL researchers know with the development of their SJ3 solar cell.
Researchers use imaging technologies to solve puzzle of plant architecture
November 28, 2012 8:26 am | News | CommentsScientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the BioEnergy Science Center combined different microscopic imaging methods to gain a greater understanding of the relationships between biomass cell wall structure and enzyme digestibility, a breakthrough that could lead to optimizing sugar yields and lowering the costs of making biofuels.
NREL nanotechnology solar cell achieves 18.2% efficiency
October 15, 2012 8:18 am | News | CommentsScientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have produced solar cells using nanotechnology techniques at an efficiency—18.2%—that is competitive. The breakthrough should be a step toward helping lower the cost of solar energy.
Producing ethylene via photosynthesis
September 26, 2012 5:01 am | News | CommentsScientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have demonstrated a better way to use photosynthesis to produce ethylene, a breakthrough that could change the way materials, chemicals, and transportation fuels are made, and help clean the air. The scientists introduced a gene into a cyanobacterium and demonstrated that the organism remained stable through a least four generations, producing ethylene gas that could be easily captured.
Microgrids: So much more than backup energy
August 27, 2012 12:12 pm | News | CommentsMost Americans don't have to think much about energy reliability. We plug in a computer and it powers up; we flip a switch and the lights come on. While very reliable today. the U.S. electricity grid is old and has gone at least five decades without a significant technological upgrade. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory is working with industry on one solution to help maintain a secure, reliable flow of energy: microgrids.
NREL study shows renewable energy potential in every state
August 2, 2012 5:35 am | News | CommentsA new study of renewable energy’s technical potential finds that every state in the nation has the space and resource to generate clean energy. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory produced the study, which looks at available renewable resources in each state and establishes an upper-boundary estimate of development potential.
Success Story: Innovation Speeds Solar Cell Tests
July 27, 2012 6:56 am | Articles | CommentsEngineers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have developed a way to assess the quality of solar cells at a speed that is orders-of-magnitude faster than previous methods.
NREL helps supersize butanol production
June 20, 2012 7:29 am | News | CommentsThe idea of "supersizing" is no longer embraced when it comes to what we eat. But when it comes to creating renewable fuels, supersizing can be a very good thing. Recently, a team of scientists from Cobalt Technologies assembled at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to supersize their process for making renewable butanol.
NREL simulates shade conditions in repeatable test for solar arrays
May 15, 2012 8:25 am | News | CommentsThe National Renewable Energy Laboratory has released a new repeatable test protocol that simulates real shade conditions and can predict with much greater precision the effects of shade on a solar array. The new test demonstrated that under heavy shading conditions the use of microinverters instead of typical string inverters can help mitigate the impacts of shade by improving system performance by more than 12%.
More precise look at cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions for energy technology
May 7, 2012 10:19 am | News | CommentsA new approach to assessing greenhouse gas emissions from coal, wind, solar, and other energy technologies paints a much more precise picture of cradle-to-grave emissions and should help sharpen decisions on what new energy projects to build.
Eight national labs streamline partnership agreements
February 27, 2012 5:43 pm | News | CommentsIntended to help cut red tape for business and startups wanting to do business with the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s research laboratories, the new Agreements for Commercializing Technology (ACT) program was recently launched as a third alternative to the two preceding options: signing a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) or a Work For Others (WFO) Agreement.
Power generation is blowing in the wind
January 17, 2012 4:59 am | News | CommentsBy looking at the stability of the atmosphere, wind farm operators could gain greater insight into the amount of power generated at any given time. Power generated by a wind turbine largely depends on the wind speed. In a wind farm in which the turbines experience the same wind speeds but different shapes, such as turbulence, to the wind profile, a turbine will produce different amounts of power.
Economy, Energy, and Entrepreneurship
December 15, 2011 4:13 am | by R&D Editors | Articles | CommentsFederally funded research can be a solution to some of the nation's top challenges, say government laboratory executives.
Economy, Energy, and Entrepreneurship: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
December 15, 2011 3:35 am | by R&D Editors | Articles | CommentsNational Renewable Energy Laboratory's Bob Hawsey speaks on topics including funding, peer review, entrepreneurship, nanotechnology research, and communicating research missions in a social networking environment.
NREL earns federal award for sustainable IT practices
September 21, 2011 8:42 am | News | CommentsThe U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has earned a 2011 Platinum-level Award from the Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC) recognizing NREL's efforts to help the federal government improve its sustainable practices.
NREL to help four start-ups ramp up solar energy innovations
September 12, 2011 7:36 am | News | CommentsCompanies with innovative, game-changing ways to lower the cost of solar energy have been awarded $5.8 million to work with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The SunShot Incubator Program is an expansion of DOE's successful PV Technology Incubator Program, launched in 2007, which to date has funded $60 million in projects and leveraged $1.3 billion in private investment.
Photons serve double duty
August 14, 2011 8:00 pm | Award WinnersThe Optical Cavity Furnace uses light enclosed within a highly reflective, ceramic-lined chamber to achieve a level of temperature uniformity far beyond what is available with a conventional furnace.
Silicon ink boosts solar efficiency
August 14, 2011 8:00 pm | Award WinnersWith Innovalight Silicon Ink for High-Efficiency Solar Cells, scientists at Innovalight Inc. and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have invented a liquid form of silicon that can be added to solar cells to markedly increase conversion efficiency.
Parallel acquisition speeds PV testing
August 14, 2011 8:00 pm | Award WinnersThe Flash Quantum Efficiency System for Solar Cells uses a parallel approach to acquire quantum efficiency (QE) spectrum plots at a rate of one second per cell, more than 1,000 times faster than conventional QE systems.
NREL, Verizon to explore energy-saving technologies
July 28, 2011 5:02 am | News | CommentsThe U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Verizon signed a memorandum of understanding that could lead to the development of new innovative ways to reduce energy use in the information and communications technology industry.
The greening of data
July 12, 2011 10:20 am | by Heather Lammers | News | CommentsPower usage effectiveness (PUE) is a key metric for determining how green a data center is and it shows how effectively a data center uses power. Measured as a ratio of the total amount of power used in the data center divided by the amount of power to the computer equipment, the best score a data center can get 1.0. The National Renewable Energy Lab recently dropped its PUE from 3.3 to 1.15 in an effort to be a leader in this area, and to save hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Teaching algae to make fuel
May 24, 2011 4:15 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsMany kinds of algae and cyanobacteria are capable of using energy from sunlight to split water molecules and release hydrogen, which holds promise as a clean and carbon-free fuel for the future. One reason this approach hasn’t yet been harnessed for fuel production is that under ordinary circumstances, hydrogen production takes a back seat to the production of compounds that the organisms use to support their own growth. However, a team of researchers have found a way to use bioengineered proteins to flip this preference, allowing more hydrogen to be produced.
