nrel

A new partnership between the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the International Code Council (ICC) will aim to increase the adoption of software that instantly approves permits for rooftop solar systems.

The installed cost of solar PV, solar-plus-storage and standalone battery energy storage in the US was reduced across all market segments between 2020 and 2021, with the biggest drop seen in the utility-scale segment. 

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is to fund projects aiming to extend the operational lifetime of solar PV projects to 50 years and support the development of advanced materials such as perovskites.

Solar PV could provide up to 40% of the US’ total power demand by 2035, but only if annual installations quadruple by the middle of the decade.

Earlier this week the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) published its 2021 Annual Technology Baseline (ATB) document, detailing the continued reduction in the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) of the country’s core generators. Liam Stoker takes a look at the data and discusses just how cheap solar, and solar-storage, could become.

Utility-scale solar PV in the US could be as a cheap as US$16.89/MWh by the end of the decade, new analysis published by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) has shown.

Software company Accela is joining forces with the US Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on a new platform offering faster permitting for residential solar and battery energy storage projects.

A Colorado PV park that is said to be the largest agrophotovoltaic research project in the US has been completed with trackers from Solar FlexRack

Despite the importance of reliability to the cost competitiveness of PV, large data sets enabling high-level investigation of the technology’s performance in the field are relatively scarce. Dirk C. Jordan, Chris Deline, Bill Marion and Teresa Barnes of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Mark Bolinger of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study a unique data set of 100,000 PV systems in the US, drawing out tips for better reliability that have relevance to other parts of the world.

Further study is needed to reduce the recycling costs and environmental impact of used solar panels, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).