National Laboratory of the Rockies

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Description: The National Laboratory of the Rockies is the only U.S. national laboratory solely dedicated to advancing renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies from concept to commercial application. For 35 years, NLR innovations, analysis, and expertise have enabled the emergence of a U.S. clean energy industry and led to numerous success stories from across the laboratory.
NLR’s 327-acre main campus in Golden, Colorado, is a living model of sustainable energy. The laboratory also operates the National Wind Technology Center on 305 acres located 13 miles north of its main campus.

NLR completed and incorporated the co-simulation platform HELICS, the Hierarchical Engine for Large-Scale Infrastructure Co-Simulation. HELICS interfaces between energy domains and their respective modeling tools to perform grid simulation and analyses, allowing cyber-physical demonstrations of interdependent, large-scale energy systems.

NLR also finalized its advanced distribution management system testbed. The testbed allows users to validate grid management applications, and pilot and plan control scenarios within a real distribution system environment. Three use cases helped validate the new test bed, spanning topics in DER optimization and data management

Capabilities and Areas of Expertise:

• Renewable Fuels — Biomass, hydrogen and fuel cells and vehicle technologies
• Renewable Electricity — Solar, wind, water, geothermal, smart-grid technology and building technology and efficiency
• Energy Science — Chemical and biosciences, scientific computing and materials science
• Strategic Energy Analysis — Technology, markets, public policy, security, and government programs
• Commercialization and Technology Transfer — Sponsored research and development agreements and licenses with private industry to develop commercial products
• Deployment — Information and tools to help communities, industry and government select the most impactful technologies to reduce their fossil energy use

Among the latest developments of NLR researchers, the Integrated Grid Modeling System (IGMS), a first-of-its-kind, large-scale simulation tool, was specifically designed to integrate transmission and distribution. It models a large number of distribution systems in co-simulation with power markets and automatic generation control.

Consulting Services

The Energy Systems Integration Facility at NLR is a user facility, granting collaborators access to state-of-the-art equipment and domain experts. Consulting services are also offered in the context of site-specific evaluations for cybersecurity and technical reviews, component testing, panel positions, and all work pertaining to partnerships with both large and small organizations. For more information, visit https://www.nrel.gov/esif/.

For the latest report on all research conducted at the NLR Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) see the 2016 Annual Report here

NLR researchers have developed the Integrated Grid Modeling System (IGMS), a first-of-its-kind, large-scale simulation tool specifically designed to integrate transmission and distribution. Read a journal article about IGMS here