1
Electricity, Resources, and Building Systems Integration
at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
David Mooney and Benjamin Kroposki, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado
Abstract-- As deployment rates for new energy technologies
rapidly increase, there is growing emphasis on infrastructure and
systems operations upgrades that will be needed to accommodate the
unique operating characteristics of new renewable, efficiency, and
end-use technologies. To meet these integration challenges, the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is implementing a
comprehensive systems approach to its R&D and engineering efforts
on integration. As the centerpiece for these efforts, the U.S.
Department of Energy has commissioned the design and construction
of a state-of-the-art laboratory facility – the Energy Systems
Integration Facility (ESIF). The ESIF will be constructed to enable
complex systems research and development that fully integrates the
most advanced simulation, data analysis, engineering, and evaluation
techniques to enable optimal deployment of advanced energy
technologies. This paper will overview the ESIF’s role in NREL’s
approach to addressing large-scale renewable and efficiency
technology integration issues.
Index Terms—Renewable energy; energy efficiency; end-use systems;
integration; smart grid, systems integration, zero-energy buildings.
I. INTRODUCTION
Many new energy technologies that include renewable
generation, efficiency, and end-use technologies offer
considerable national benefits if adopted in significant
quantities. Transforming the nation’s energy infrastructure to
maximize and optimize the use of these technologies has
become a national priority. Benefits of the adoption of these
technologies include transitioning to an energy generation,
delivery, and use system that is cleaner, more secure, more
resilient, and more reliable than the current system.
Adoption of these technologies at significant rates and
scales presents a number of challenges due to some of the
unique operating characteristics of these technologies. These
characteristics include variable generation; distributed, often
remote resources; increases in communications between
utilities and customers; and increases in the amount of data
systems operators must integrate into the operations of the
electricity system.
To identify and address renewable and efficiency
integration issues, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
(NREL) is implementing a comprehensive systems approach
to its R&D and engineering efforts. This approach involves
actively treating our current system as a complex system
made up of many smaller complex systems and begins to
explore the interactions of different parts of the system under
new technology penetration scenarios – from generation, to
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transmission, to distribution, to end-use and storage.
The foundation of NREL’s efforts to address new-
technology integration issues will be a state-of-the-art
laboratory that has been commissioned by the U.S.
Department of Energy for construction at NREL’s main
campus in Golden, Colorado. The facility, termed the Energy
Systems Integration Facility, or ESIF, will be designed and
constructed to enable complex systems research and
development that will fully integrate the most advanced
simulation, data collection and analysis, engineering, and
evaluation/validation techniques to maximize and optimize
the deployment of clean energy technologies into the nation’s
infrastructure.
II. ESIF DESIGN REQUIREMENTS
To initiate the approval of this significant capital
investment, DOE developed a Mission Needs Statement to
ensure that the functional concept of the facility aligns with
the higher level goals of the Department. In the Mission
Needs Statement for ESIF, a set of competency areas was
identified that the building would need to address. These
competencies included renewable resources characterization
(measurement and forecasting); integrated testing and field
validation of systems and components; renewable generation
systems operations and performance; systems operations and
controls simulations; advanced computational approaches to
energy systems; building system design and integration;
renewable hydrogen production; codes and standards
development and validation; and energy storage.
In order to fully develop the specific design elements that
would enable the ESIF to address the Mission Need
Statement’s competency areas, an extensive process was
launched in the summer of 2008 that identified specific
activities needed to develop/support a given competency. In
total, 48 specific activities were identified as necessary to
support the spectrum of new-energy-technology integration
challenges as identified by DOE. For each of these activities,
sets of tasks were also developed that included significant
levels of detail necessary to successfully accomplish a given
task. These details included the types of organizations that
would be involved in a task, what the expected inputs and
outputs of the task would be, the type and number of staff
needed to execute the task, and the equipment needed to
complete the task. In all, 117 tasks were fully detailed to
support the activities and competencies recognized as critical
to addressing RE and EE integration mission. These details
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have formed the basis of the design requirements for the A. High Performance Computer and Data Center
laboratory. The information from these detailed task and At the heart of the ESIF’s functionality will be a high-
activity assessments is now being used in the development of performance computer (HPC) that is anticipated to have a
a design-build request-for-proposals for solicitation of a 200+ teraflop processing capacity. The HPC is being
design-build contractor to be retained in the spring of 2009. designed as a state-of-the-art, multi-program facility for
High-level outputs from this information include: computer simulation, scientific data management supporting
• Overall building size – 135,000 square feet experimental facilities, data mining, and high speed networks
• Number of laboratory spaces – 20+ linking people, computers, data, and experiments. Included in
• Outdoor test beds (ground and rooftop) – 5 the facility will be the HPC, an energy-data center/hub, a
• Office spaces – 200+ general-purpose visualization and insight center, and a high-
• High performance computer – 200 teraflop processing speed networking capability. Much effort is being expended
• General purpose visualization and insight center to develop the HPC as a model for energy-efficient design for
• Electricity systems visualization center computing and data centers. This facility will be used broadly
by the NREL scientific community and its R&D partners, but
In addition to extensive modeling and simulation of will play a key role specifically in efforts for modeling
technology and technology integration (discussed below) complex electrical systems.
samples of specific technology areas and the integration B. Electricity Systems Visualization Center
issues to be addressed using ESIF functionality are shown in
Using the HPC as a backbone, the ESIF will house a
Table I below. Note that the list is not comprehensive, rather
dedicated electricity systems visualization center (ESVC).
it is meant to give an idea of the types of activities that will be
The ESVC will be utilized to enable ready visualization of
taking place in the ESIF.
TABLE I
individual complex systems or combinations of complex
TECHNOLOGIES AND INTEGRATION ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED USING ESIF systems that make up the larger electric system.
CAPABILITIES The ESVC will also be developed to function as a virtual
utility operations center. In this configuration, the ESVC will
Technology Area Integration Issues be able to model and visualize all or a portion of a utility’s
Solar • Interconnection
generation, transmission, distribution, and end-use systems
• Power electronics
• Building integration for purposes of exploring how its system will respond under a
• Thermal and PV system variety of scenarios that involve high penetrations of new-
optimization energy technologies. These simulations will be able to be run
Buildings • Sensors and controls with real load data using historic weather and resource data,
• PV design and integration or, extreme weather events can be modeled to gain insight
• Modeling and simulation into how a utility’s system would respond under challenging
• System integration
circumstances. This capability will also allow operators to
Hydrogen • H2/electric interfaces
• RE electrolyzers gain insights into how to respond to different resource
• Storage systems conditions when their systems have large amount of variable,
• Standards renewable generation coupled with smart grid and demand
• Fuel cell integration control technologies.
• Fueling systems
Wind • Models, methods for wind- IV. SUMMARY
grid integration
• Transmission planning Significant challenges exists when contemplating the
• Operations modeling integration of large quantities of renewable and efficiency
Advanced Vehicles • Plug-in-hybrids and vehicle- technologies into the nation’s existing infrastructure. The
to-grid scope and importance of these issues demand a nationwide,
• Battery thermal management concerted effort to realize the full benefits of maximizing the
• Power electronics
use of our indigenous, clean energy resources. The ESIF is
Storage • CSP Thermal Storage
being designed and built as a national asset that can be used as
• Utility scale batteries
• Distributed storage a focal point by experts across the university, national lab ,
• Storage optimization within industrial, and utility complexes to fully collaborate and
the system enable the benefits of renewable and efficiency technology
adoption at speed and scale.
III. ESIF SPECIAL FEATURES
A number of special features planned for the ESIF warrant
highlighting. These features, referenced in the bullet list
above, are detailed in this section.

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V. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Electrical from the Colorado School of Mines and a BS and

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the U.S. MS in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech.
Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy; the U.S. Department of Energy’s Golden
Field Office; Steve Hammond of NREL; NREL’s design
requirements development team; and NREL’s construction
group.

VI. BIOGRAPHIES

David Mooney is currently Center

Director for NREL’s Electricity,
Resources, and Building Systems
Integration Center where he is leading
efforts to identify and address technical
issues associated with the large-scale
deployment and integration of renewable
energy technologies into the existing
energy infrastructure. He is a 20-year veteran of the
renewable energy industry.

From 2007 to 2008 he was assigned by NREL’s executive

management to represent the laboratory on a detail to the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy. On the assignment he conducted analysis
on EERE’s technology portfolio to quantify energy,
environmental and economic security benefits. The analysis
was used to develop and justify EERE’s $1.5 billion budget.
Dave also served as technical counsel to Deputy Assistant
Secretaries and the Assistant Secretary. Principal among his
activities at DOE was the development of a technology-based
analysis for quantifying greenhouse gas reduction potentials
for the DOE technology portfolio. Results of this analysis
have been used by U.S. negotiators at the UN Climate Change
meeting in Bali, Indonesia (12/07), and at the Major
Economies Meeting for Energy Security and Climate Change
in Hawaii (1/08) David earned his Ph.D. in physics from the
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and a B.S. in Engineering
Physics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Ben Kroposki is the Principal Group

Manager for NREL’s Distributed
Energy Systems Integration Group.
Ben works on various aspects of
integrating distributed energy (PV,
wind, fuel cell, microturbine, engine,
energy storage, and electrolyzers)
with the electric power system. His
expertise is in the design and testing
of renewable and distributed power systems. He has
participated in the development of distributed power
standards and codes including IEEE, IEC, and NEC. He has
over 70 publications in the area of photovoltaics, distributed
energy, and power systems. Ben is a senior member of IEEE
and a registered Professional Electrical Engineer in the State
of Colorado. Ben earned his Ph.D. in Engineering Systems,

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