The US Department of Energy has announced $38 million to begin decarbonizing four of DOE’s 17 National Laboratories in support of President Biden’s goal to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050. The Net Zero Labs (NZL) Pilot Initiative will lay the foundation for one of the first-ever models for addressing hard-to-decarbonize industries and is expected to be a foundation of net-zero solutions that can be replicated at facilities across DOE, the federal government, and state and local governments.
The four DOE National Laboratories included in this initial pilot are taking proactive steps to harness and produce technology at their facilities to drive down their carbon emissions. Additional funding, available on a competitive basis to all 17 National Laboratories, is expected to be available next year.
DOE’s National Labs are among the Federal Government’s most complex energy users and have demand and resilience requirements far exceeding those of a standard facility. Each lab houses heavy industrial facilities, energy-intensive data centers, reactors, and other unique infrastructure that demands large amounts of continuous power. Through the Net-Zero Labs Pilot Initiative, DOE is demonstrating that clean energy can power these critical components.
The four National Laboratories participating in the pilot initiative reflect different geographic and climate regions that each face unique energy challenges. In addition to the efforts to decarbonize their own campus operations, they are conducting research that will help bring forward clean energy solutions for the nation.
Idaho National Laboratory (Idaho Falls, ID) is conducting advanced nuclear research to develop and integrate microreactors and small modular reactors into microgrids with other renewable energies to produce hydrogen, increase energy storage and provide reliable, secure, and clean energy to communities across the nation.
National Energy Technology Laboratory (Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR) is working to advance carbon removal technologies and will incentivize carbon-free electricity production within its three geographic regions by entering into power purchase agreements.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Golden, CO) is working to lower the cost of and increase the scale of technologies to make, store, move, and use hydrogen across multiple energy sectors.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Richland, WA) is developing state-of-the-art methods, algorithms and software platforms that enable optimized control and operation of energy assets to achieve economic, emission and resilience priorities, along with energy storage innovations that will boost clean energy adoption and make the nation’s power grid more resilient, secure, and flexible.
