The Department of Energy and National Renewable Energy Laboratory has opened a $135 million research center in Golden, Colorado that will be used to focus on the development of utility-scale clean energy grid integration technology.
Located at NREL’s campus, the energy systems integration facility will test how existing clean energy technologies interact when combined with the grid, according to an Energy Department statement Thursday.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the new facility will allow the agency to coordinate with the private sector and “help integrate more clean, renewable energy into a smarter, more reliable and more resilient power grid.”
Colorado-based Advanced Energy Industries has signed on as the facility’s first industry partner to develop low-cost solar power inverters.
The 182,500-square-foot ESIF facility will feature a petascale supercomputer, 15 experimental laboratories and outdoor test beds.
The Energy Department said White House has included a $20 million budget for fiscal 2014 facility operations.
