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In recent decades the scientific endeavor has expanded our knowledge and deepened our understanding of many of the imposing problems that face society. With this improved insight comes an appreciation that many of these issues are multi-faceted, far-reaching, and complex. The climate crisis is the toughest challenge for this generation and is an exceptionally intricate, systematic and multi-layered puzzle. In order to address this challenge in a holistic fashion we need teams of innovative scientists, from across a broad range of scientific and engineering fields, to work together in an inter-disciplinary fashion.

The Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), a joint institute between CU Boulder and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), has prioritized becoming a hub for multi-disciplinary teams focused on climate solutions to work together. Development of this ecosystem anable teams to expand their collaboration across the entire RASEI community, extending to engagement with other academic, national labs and industrial partners along the Front Range. Through fostering a team environment, developing a culture of sharing and integration, RASEI aims to accelerate fundamental discoveries and their translation to applications and solutions that can be deployed to all communities in need.

In August of 2022 the Department of Energy (DOE) released $540 million of funding for research into clean energy technologies and low-carbon manufacturing, $400 million of which is to establish and continue multi-disciplinary team science at Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs). Across the nation 43 EFRCs were funded, with 13 RASEI members involved in six of these Centers.

The EFRC program was established by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES) in 2009 to address the fact that global demand for energy is rapidly expanding, and the way in which energy is collected, stored and used needs to change. The goal of an EFRC is to bring together creative, multi-disciplinary scientific teams to tackle the toughest scientific challenges preventing advances in energy technologies. At the core of an EFRC's mission is to train the next generation of the scientific workforce, both in advanced technical techniques, and also in team science and developing the skills needed to work together to tackle large-scale problems. These Centers are initially funded for four years at about $4 million per year. If the Centers are successful, they can apply for renewed funding at the end of the first four years. Centers can only be renewed once. 

For the 2022 funding announcement, two of the RASEI-infused EFRCs, one of which is based at NREL, were renewals of existing Centers, and the other four awards were to establish new research teams. You can find out more details about the different Centers in the summary boxes below.

The RASEI community is energized to be involved in these exciting collaborative opportunities, and the chance to work together across these teams as part of the RASEI community. Colorado’s U.S. Representative Ed Perlmutter captured this enthusiasm in his quote as part of the funding announcement:

“NREL and CU Boulder, among others, continue to lead our nation in their cutting-edge research and development of a variety of clean energy technologies and low-carbon manufacturing. Their work is essential in the fight to combat climate change and achieve important climate and clean energy goals in the future”

If you would like to keep up with the progress these teams make, check out the  or signup to our monthly newsletter.