News & Feature Stories published between July and November

In this online engineering PDH course, recent news and research breakthroughs from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are described. NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for research on renewable energy and energy efficiency. NREL’s mission is to advance the science and engineering of energy efficiency, sustainable transportation, and renewable power technologies and provide the knowledge to integrate and optimize energy systems. Every year, in addition to publishing technical articles and reports, NREL publishes dozens of short articles (NREL News & Feature Stories) that take an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the latest news and research breakthroughs. The present course is Part 3 of a three-part series of courses based on excerpts of recently published News & Feature Stories. In general, all three courses should be of interest to anyone wanting to keep up with recent developments from a laboratory regularly recognized for national and global leadership in energy efficiency and renewable energy research and development. This course is intended for engineers interested in the latest developments in renewable energy and energy efficiency research.  This course is based on the course document, “Recent Developments in Renewable Energy Research at NREL Part 3.”

Learning Objectives:

At the successful conclusion of this course, you will learn the following knowledge and skills:

• Knowing the “last 10% problem,” that costs increase as cost-effective high-renewable power systems approach 100% carbon-free electricity
• Knowing distributed embedded-energy converter technologies that could generate electricity from ocean waves or even clothing, cars, and buildings
• Knowing the three key barriers to adopting a building sensors and controls system
• Knowing the need for a process to remove oxygen from lignin, so that the resulting hydrocarbons could be used as a jet fuel blendstock
• Knowing that it is critical to understand the behavioral aspects of wind power industry stakeholders’ decisions, in advancing new technologies for recycling blades
• Knowing the concept of agrivoltaics, the idea of using photovoltaic installations to both create renewable energy and provide space for local agriculture or native habitats
• Knowing the "three Rs of power system reliability": resource adequacy, operational reliability, and resilience
• Knowing that moving rows of solar panels farther apart can increase efficiency and improve economics in certain instances by allowing greater airflow to remove heat
• Knowing that a process has been developed that can convert mixed plastics to a single chemical product, thus working toward a solution that would allow recyclers to skip sorting plastic by type
• Knowing that NREL has engaged in a multiyear project with a major utility that identified least-cost pathways for carbon-free power in the region
• Knowing that a database exists that identifies every company in North America involved in building lithium-ion batteries from mining to manufacturing to recycling
• Knowing that biofuels have been shown to be competitive alternatives to petroleum across the board
• Knowing that glass-walled skyscrapers can be made more energy efficient through the addition of thermally efficient photovoltaic windows.