Renewable Energies – The Big
Leap
When
you think of ways that we, as an expanding and consumer-focused society,
contribute to climate change for better or for worse, energy consumption is
what I think of first. The resources we are using and have been using since the
industrial revolution, are a finite amount and will not be replenished in any
of our lifetimes.
There
are many players which contribute to making this large transition – this leap –
into an even more ever growing world which uses new technologies which are more
efficient by use of less fossil fuels or by eradicating the dependence of it
completely via renewable energy sources. One of these players is the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a government agency whose goal is to
develop technologies and practices that are energy clean and efficient along
with engineering and science related advances and providing innovations for
integration at any scale. NREL resides in Golden, Colorado. Their laboratories
and testing facilities are here, whilst they also have an office in Washington
D.C. and they have been around since 1974.
In
2011, NREL developed a brief introductory pamphlet type of document to be shown
at the 48th AiCARR International Conference (Italian Association
aimed at plant reproduction of thermal energy). This small document has a lot
of information packed into it regarding renewable energy sources. What I think
makes this document more important than anything else I have seen is its focus
of adapting these new technologies for buildings.
When
I say buildings, I feel the need to elaborate; According to their introduction
for the AiCARR, “Buildings account for approximately 40% of the worldwide
annual energy consumption (WBCSD 2009).” I do not simply mean, outfitting old
buildings with fluorescent lighting, carpets made from recyclable materials and
furniture with some odd percent of biodegradable material. There is also much
more than just solar panels and wind turbines, they have solar shingles for
roofing, grid-tied communities, solar heating and ventilation and geothermal
access; they even have an implementation plan for different ages of buildings.
NREL
isn’t only working with other agencies and organizations to research new
methods of implementation of renewable energy sources. Providing students in
primary school special programs for learning more about the science and
technology that goes into these energy solutions is a great way to spread
knowledge. Teachers can also attend certain programs, a 5-day workshop that
will teach them how to “integrate renewable energy and energy efficiency
components into existing courses…”
Three
facilities are owned and managed by NREL to help develop these new
technologies. They are the National Bioenergy Center (NBC), National Center for
Photovoltaics (NCP) and the National Wind Technology Center (NWTC). The NWTC
also specializes in in advancing oceanic and freshwater power technologies and
is home to their testing center of distributed energy resources (DERTF). This
DERTF “includes generation, storage, and interconnection technologies as well
as electric power system equipment capable of simulating a real-world electric
system.”
Back
to the transition. Buildings account for 40% of the energy consumed in the
world. NREL helps develop technologies in renewable energy sources. They test
their innovated devices and technologies in a multitude of ways for a bunch of
different sectors. I would like to think they are a major actor, given the fact
that they are attending international conferences in Italy about HVAC remedies
of older buildings.
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