Renewable Tech Projections and Opportunities To Power Research in the South Pole

In this episode, our hosts discuss two recent stories from NREL:  

1. The recent release of this year’s  Electricity Annual Technology Baseline (ATB): a valuable resource for utility planners and grid operators to understand and tackle new challenges in the ever-changing power landscape. For the last 10 years, researchers, led by NREL, have released this product that organizes current and projected data in an easy-to-use format that provides detailed information tailored to different electricity-generation technologies. The Electricity ATB takes complex data and translates it into publicly usable information to help federal agencies, state energy offices, utilities, and academia learn about and plan for the future.  
2. How to power the South Pole with renewable technologies: NREL and Argonne National Laboratory researchers looked at how a combination of solar modules, wind turbines, and battery storage could provide a cost-effective way to expand research capabilities at the South Pole while significantly reducing costs. The idea to shift away from diesel fuel specially formulated to withstand the extreme cold comes as scientists look toward future experiments. 

Plus, Special Correspondent Nataleah Small highlights some of the ways NREL employees take a hands-on approach to expanding solar deployment in their communities and ensuring energy equity.  

This episode was hosted by Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle, written and produced by Allison Montroy and Kaitlyn Stottler, and edited by James Wilcox, Joe DelNero, and Brittany Falch. Graphics are by Brittnee Gayet. Our title music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino of Drift BC. Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast is created by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. Email us at podcast@nrel.gov. Follow NREL on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, and Facebook.

Transcript

[intro music, fades] 

Taylor: Welcome to Transforming Energy: The NREL Podcast, brought to you by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. We’re highlighting the latest in clean energy research and innovations happening at the lab. It’s Wednesday, July 24. I’m Taylor Mankle. 

Nataleah: And I’m special correspondent, Nataleah Small, filling in for Kerrin today. 

So, Taylor, it’s an exciting time for us on at Transforming Energy because… drum roll please… it’s our one-year anniversary!

[Celebratory sounds]

Taylor: Wow, it is! We’ve been sharing news from the lab with this podcast for a full year. I can barely wrap my head around it. Can you believe it? 

Nataleah: Oh my gosh, I cannot believe it. Time flies when you’re having fun! Every other week when I’m driving to campus, I just totally enjoy listening to these episodes on my commute. I love hearing stories from you and Kerrin and Jason—oh my gosh this podcast is just so much fun; I love learning about science this way. 

Taylor: Aw, you’re making me blush here in the soundbooth nataleah. But a special thanks to you, the entire team, and our audience who make this possible. But the work doesn’t stop. Because we’ve got more great research to share. Let’s get right into it. 

[music] 

Taylor: If there was a throughline in all of our episodes, Nataleah, I think it might be change. The renewable energy space is constantly changing. 

Nataleah: Yes. The technology keeps getting better, new methods are continually being identified, we are learning so much all the time. It’s an exciting space to work in but all that change can make it difficult to make decisions. 

Taylor: Yeah, no kidding, and knowing you’re working with the best, most up-to-date information on renewable energy technology is critical to that decision-making process. That’s where the Electricity A-T-B comes in.  

Nataleah: The Electricity ATB, or Annual Technology Baseline, is a valuable resource for utility planners and grid operators to understand and tackle new challenges in the ever-changing power landscape. For the last 10 years, researchers, led by NREL, have released this product that organizes current and projected data in an easy-to-use format that provides detailed information tailored to different electricity-generation technologies.  

Taylor: The Electricity ATB takes complex data and translates it into publicly usable information to help federal agencies, state energy offices, utilities, and academia learn about and plan for the future. It’s also offered in multiple formats to make sure it’s as accessible as possible: there’s an Excel workbook, an application programming interface, open-source code, a website, and more. 

Nataleah: Right, the Electricity ATB provides consistent, freely available, technology-specific cost and performance parameters around a range of scenarios, looking at present-day all the way through 2050. 

Taylor: Researchers across the national lab complex are working diligently to provide up-to-date data to help stakeholders make informed decisions on their renewable energy futures. 

Nataleah: It’s been a guiding force behind some projects we’ve talked about in the past, including the LA100 Study and the Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study, known as PR100.

Taylor: With an industry like this that’s so in-flux, it’s an incredibly useful tool! 

Nataleah: Yeah, and to that point, this year’s Electricity ATB got some technology-specific upgrades. 

Taylor: Great. Those technologies include offshore wind, nuclear power, geothermal, pumped storage hydropower, and natural gas.  

Taylor: All those updates are helping stakeholders make better decisions for their energy use and future. And, there are a lot of stakeholders. The Electricity ATB has nearly 100,000 users from 144 countries—so its reach is really impressive.

Nataleah: Wow, that’s so impressive. It’s widely used, and widely loved. Seriously, Taylor, people look forward to this thing all year. I’ve even heard that the day it’s released is called ‘ATB Day’ by superfans. I don’t know how many projects we have at the lab that have their own day! That’s so cool. 

Taylor: The team hosted a webinar all about the Electricity ATB yesterday, which will be available next week, along with other resources, at atb.nrel.gov! 

[music]

 Nataleah: OK, let’s switch gears a little bit. Or actually a lot, really. Let’s take a trip down south.  

 Taylor: And we’re talking reallyyyyy far south. 

 Nataleah: Yep, the most south you can go: the South Pole! Antarctica is full of research opportunities. But, it’s also one of the most extreme places on the planet—making powering that research kind of difficult. 

Taylor: NREL and Argonne National Laboratory researchers are studying how renewable energy could provide a cost-effective way to expand research capabilities at the bottom of the world. The hope is to shift the research operations from diesel fuel, which currently has to be specifically formulated to withstand the extreme cold and be shipped by plane or truck. 

Nataleah: The study examined the economics and feasibility of using renewable energy in this extreme environment. And it found that using a combo of wind turbines, solar, and battery energy storage could reduce the amount of diesel power consumption by 96%. 

Taylor: Over 15 years, the savings of using less diesel would amount to $57 million. Not to mention the massive reduction in environmental damage of burning diesel in such a pristine location. 

Nataleah: This study proved the technology would work in Antarctica’s extreme environment. Ian Baring-Goul , the Wind Technology deployment manager at NREL who coauthored the research publication, also noted that there’s nothing standing in the way of achieving this. According to him, it’s not a complicated feat from a technology standpoint. 

Taylor: There’s nothing complicated about a wind turbine working in negative 70 degrees. I love scientists. That sounds pretty complicated to the normal person like me. 

Nataleah: It sounds complicated to me too. But you know? It’s all about that can-do attitude. The technology will work, but there are more steps than just putting up wind turbines and scattering a solar array. 

Taylor: That makes sense. The design and placement of the renewables will require additional work. For example, the solar panels must be designed to avoid becoming buried by snowdrifts. The foundation for the wind turbines will be anchored in ice, which has not been attempted before at this scale.

 Nataleah: So, we’ve got a while to go, but it is likely that research at the South Pole could alleviate its dependence on diesel and someday be powered by renewables!

[music]

Taylor: Pivoting away from NREL research, Nataleah, I understand you’ve also prepared a nice little segment for the show today. 

Nataleah: Yes! Normally I hop on here every couple of months to share some community news from the lab, but since I’m already here, I was thinking I could take a few minutes to spotlight NREL’s volunteer efforts, because we’ve been doing some pretty cool stuff in the community.

Taylor: Of course! One of the things I love about NREL is that volunteering and giving back to the community is a key part of our mission. So, Nataleah, please, tell us more about NREL’s Giving program.   

Nataleah: Absolutely! Here at the lab, NREL Giving refers to all the ways NREL staff give back to the community. That includes employee passion requests, like monetary contributions to charitable organizations, volunteering for activities like park and trail cleanups, putting together care packages for those in need—honestly, the list just goes on and on!

NREL’s Strategic Public Private Partnerships executive director Doug Arent is a cochair for the Giving Campaign. He believes giving back is key to our work.  

Doug Arent: Giving is part of the core mission of NREL and part of being a good corporate citizen here in Colorado and elsewhere. It is aligned with our mission of inventing clean energy solutions and getting them deployed globally. Philanthropy and being engaged in our local community and important to being good local citizens and good global citizens.

Nataleah: NREL also works with renewable energy focused nonprofits to help deploy clean energy solutions in the community. For more than a decade, NREL has partnered with GRID Alternatives Colorado. GRID Alternatives is the largest solar nonprofit in the U.S and provides free or no cost solar systems to income qualified families across the country. Their mission is to leverage solar, and other renewable technologies, to help ensure the clean energy future is equitable to all. 

About a month ago, a group of volunteers from NREL helped install a 6.9-kilowatt solar system on a residential home in Denver. With guidance from GRID Alternatives, the NREL volunteers experienced every aspect of a solar installation, including working on the ground with the electrician, installing the inverter, and bending conduit pipe to wire the system. During the installation, the weather outside was 95 degrees, and the whole team definitely felt the power of the sun on top of the roof! 

Cam Patterson, who is the development and communications manager for GRID Alternatives, said he loves having NREL employees—or NRELians, as we call ourselves—participate in these projects.  

Cam Patterson: I always tell NRELians that the days with NREL are the most fun because you're all kind of solar nerds and we had researchers in perovskites and then other people working on federal weatherization policy and just bunch of solar nerds out. And so, it's a ton of fun because NRELians come out and help our construction crew work side by side to install a whole solar system.  

Nataleah: This boots on the ground work is also a great way to see research in the real world. Kate Anderson, who is NREL’s Strategy lead, also serves as a cochair for the Giving Campaign. She explained that in her previous role at NREL, she helped model solar energy systems. She said installing solar on a home is a great reality check for folks who tend to work in a lab all day.  

Kate Anderson: When we get a chance to volunteer with these community organizations, we are directly supporting NREL’s vision. We're also, you know, getting a chance to understand some of how our technologies are actually implemented out in the real world. And some of the challenges that are encountered in deployment, I think that helps us to kind of bring those lessons back to the research that we do every day and make sure that we're considering that in the technologies that we develop.  

Nataleah: Stepping outside of the lab is a huge part of creating equitable clean energy solutions for all. And having the opportunity to volunteer with amazing nonprofits like GRID Alternatives, is what it’s all about. After the volunteer event, our Giving program coordinator Ivilina Thornton thanked the NREL volunteers and GRID Alternatives for the opportunity to serve the community.  

Ivilina Thornton: It is amazing to see NREL, NRELians out there in the community and on roofs and underneath houses and trying to make sure that we walk the talk. Our mission is carried over and becoming a reality. 

Nataleah: If folks want to learn more about how NRELians are giving back, check out the Community page on nrel.gov.  

Taylor: Loved all of that. Thanks so much for that impactful update Nataleah. This definitely inspires me to seek out more ways to volunteer in my community and help ensure the clean energy future is equitable for all.  

[music]  

Nataleah: Taylor, thanks for having me back in the studio. It was great sharing about NREL’s work, both in the lab and in the community. 

Taylor: Happy to have you as always! Another great episode, Nataleah.  

Nataleah: Absolutely. Listeners leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or send us an email at podcast@nrel.gov. Thanks so much for tuning in. 

Taylor: Thanks everyone! Kerrin and I will be back in two weeks with more news from the lab. 

[music]

Nataleah: This episode was adapted from NREL news articles from June 2024 written by Emily Mercer and Wayne Hicks. Our theme music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino, of Drift B-C. This podcast is produced by NREL’s Communications Office and recorded at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. We express our gratitude and acknowledge that the land we are on is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples. We recognize and pay respect to the Indigenous peoples from our past, present, and future, and are grateful to those who have been and continue to be stewards of this land.