March 2016
Colorado School Earns Return Trip to National Science Bowl
Ridgeview Classical Charter School scores convincing victory at Colorado Science Bowl to secure trip to national competition.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management Looks to NREL for Geothermal Technical Support
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has entered into an interagency agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to provide technical support and assistance in the development of renewable energy from geothermal resources on public lands.
NREL Hosts PV Module Reliability Workshop for Industry
Nearly 200 researchers from more than 100 companies and representing 16 countries attended the 7th annual PV Module Reliability Workshop, Feb. 23–25, 2016, in Golden, Colo.
February 2016
News Release: Belgium's Red Electrical Devils Win $1 Million for Innovative Inverter Design
Google and IEEE announced today that Belgium's Red Electrical Devils, a team from CE+T Power, has won the Little Box Challenge, a competition to invent a much smaller inverter for interconnecting solar power systems to the power grid. The success earned the team a $1 million prize while proving that inverters can be the size of a tablet or smaller rather than the size of a picnic cooler, more than a factor of 10 reduction in size. The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) provided critical analysis of the 18 finalists teams’ inverters to help determine the winner.
News Release: NREL Collaboration Boosts Potential for CdTe Solar Cells
A critical milestone has been reached in cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cell technology, helping pave the way for solar energy to directly compete with electricity generated by conventional energy sources.
News Release: NREL Seeks Participants for 2016 National Executive Energy Leadership Program
The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is now accepting applications for its 2016 Executive Energy Leadership Program.
News Release: Ridgeview Classical Charter Schools Wins 26th Colorado Science Bowl
Students from Ridgeview Classical Charter Schools won the Colorado High School Science Bowl. They will represent the state of Colorado at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Science Bowl in Washington D.C., April 28– May 2, where they will compete against more than 400 students from 70 high schools for the national title.
NREL Teams With ComEd on Microgrid-Integrated Storage Solution to Get More Solar on the Grid
NREL energy systems integration researchers are collaborating with one of the nation’s largest electric utilities to deploy a unique solar and battery storage solution at a microgrid demonstration site.
News Release: NREL analysis finds tax credit extensions can impact renewable energy deployment and electric sector CO2 emissions
The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) today released new analysis exploring the potential impact of recently extended federal tax credits on the deployment of renewable generation technologies and related U.S. electric sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
NREL Power Systems Engineering Researchers Publish 33 Articles in Last Year
NREL's Power Systems Engineering Center published 33 journal and magazine articles in the past year highlighting recent research in integrating renewable energy into power systems.
Potential of Perovskite Solar Cells Featured in Solar Today
In an interview published in Solar Today, Dr. Jao van de Lagemaat, director of the Chemistry and Nanoscience Center at the National Renewable Laboratory (NREL), highlighted various aspects of perovskites, which have received considerable attention by solar cell researchers at NREL and other institutions.
News Release: Renewable Fuels from Algae Boosted by NREL Refinery Process
A new biorefinery process developed by scientists at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has proven to be significantly more effective at producing ethanol from algae than previous research.
News Release: NREL Helps Establish New PV Quality Standards for Manufacturers
Working with partners around the world, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have completed five years of work toward helping establish an international quality standard for manufacturing photovoltaic (PV) modules.
News Release: NREL Explains the Higher Cellulolytic Activity of a Vital Microorganism
Researchers at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) say better understanding of a bacterium could lead to cheaper production of cellulosic ethanol and other advanced biofuels.
News Release: NREL Patents Method for Continuous Monitoring of Materials During Manufacturing
The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) was recently issued a patent for a novel method that rapidly characterizes specialized materials during the manufacturing process. This approach significantly improves on standard quality control techniques by allowing for complete monitoring of materials without interrupting workflow.
Claims for Solar Cell Efficiency Put to Test at NREL
Record numbers carefully vetted by scientists to assure accuracy.
January 2016
NREL and Partners Demonstrate First-of-a-Kind Use of Utility-Scale PV for Ancillary Services
Demonstration project shows utility-scale photovoltaic plants that incorporate “grid-friendly” controls can contribute to grid stability and reliability.
NREL Releases High-Penetration PV Handbook for Distribution Engineers
A new resource sponsored by the Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative helps distribution engineers understand the challenges of high-penetration PV integration—giving them the information they need to ramp up their solar energy integration and deliver more clean, renewable power to consumers.
NREL Describes to U.S. Senate Role National Labs Play in Sustainable Transportation Innovation
On Thursday, January 12, 2016, NREL’s Transportation and Hydrogen Systems Center Director Chris Gearhart provided a testimony on new technologies in the automobile industry before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
NREL Serves as the Energy Department's Showcase for Cutting-Edge Fuel Cell Cars
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently received a 2015 Tucson Fuel Cell vehicle on loan from Hyundai and a B-Class F-CELL on loan from Mercedes-Benz. NREL is partnering with Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai to evaluate the interaction of the vehicles' high-pressure hydrogen storage systems with NREL's hydrogen fueling system equipment and to test the user experience by refueling fuel cell electric vehicles at the lab's new state-of-the-art hydrogen fueling station.
Last Updated Jan. 22, 2026