Our National Lab Partners
Innovation Corridor (IC) is a unique long-term partnership between two of the nation’s premier federally funded research labs (each owning and operating one of the world’s fastest high-performance supercomputers, private industry, and capital partners:
The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) – the nation’s premier federally funded research lab in advanced energy and energy efficiency (e.g., complex building energy analysis, bioenergy, geothermal, grid modernization, solar, electric vehicles, wind, water, hydrogen, and fuel cells). Providing deep technical support for the wide array of energy modeling, is the DOE/NREL’s Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF). ESIF is the nation’s foremost 182,500 sf research facility providing state-of-the-art lab infrastructure to optimize the design and performance of electrical, thermal, fuel, and information technologies and systems at scale.
This “unique national asset” has the capability to accelerate the commercialization and adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies – ESIF is the nation’s first R&D facility that is able to conduct mega-watt scale (utility-scale) research, development, and demonstration of key components and advanced energy projects with the speed, sophistication, and refinement needed for national goals and global requirements. ESIF provides a unique contained and controlled platform on which NREL partners can identify and resolve technical, operational, and financial risks of integrating emerging energy technologies into sophisticated energy systems.
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) – the nation’s premier federally funded research lab in weather forecasting, earth sciences (atmospheric, oceanic, solar and related sciences), climate analysis and global dynamics, and carbon mitigation/carbon adaptation modeling and solutions. UCAR/NCAR’s Research Applications Laboratory (RAL) provides solutions to global concerns regarding Agriculture and Food, Aviation Issues, High Impact Weather, Human Health and Safety, National Security, Renewable Energy, Surface Transportation, and Water Resources.
RAL carries out sophisticated research on social, economic, and health activities related to climate and weather at local, regional, and global scales. In addition, NCAR has created the Global Risk, Resilience, and Impacts Toolbox (GRRIT). GRRIT is a fully supported community toolbox to aid society in reducing weather and climate impacts, building economic resilience, and improving disaster recovery by querying a vast database of information and quantifying uncertainty. RAL scientists research the world’s most complex questions regarding weather and climate change, and model solutions to the globe’s most pressing questions.