Renewable Energy

The Laboratory has undertaken large and small efforts to increase the production and use of renewable energy, such as solar and wind. The goal is for 20 percent of the Lab's annual electricity consumption to come from renewable sources of energy by 2020.  

One major accomplishment in solar energy was the development of the Long Island Solar Farm, a solar photovoltaic power plant located at Brookhaven Lab. The Long Island Solar Farm was developed through a collaboration that included BP Solar, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), and the U.S. Department of Energy, and began delivering power to the LIPA grid in November 2011. In 2014, it provided 52 million kilowatt hours per year (kWh/yr) of clean renewable energy to Long Island.

In 2014, the Laboratory developed the Northeast Solar Energy Research Center (NSERC) on-site to serve as a solar energy research and test facility for the solar industry. NSERC's mission is to support the expansion of solar power by providing high-quality data, field-testing, analyses, and solar energy expertise to address technical, economic, environmental, and policy issues facing solar power deployment in northeastern climates. NSERC will be a proving ground for Brookhaven Lab and its industrial partners to test new solar technologies, including electrical inverters, storage devices, and solar modules. A meter showing live power data being generated by NSERC is shown at right.

We've also implemented other smaller renewable energy projects, including:

• Solar-powered traffic signals in various locations
• Solar-powered lights in remote parking lots
• A solar hot-water demonstration project integrating flat-panel solar hot water collectors and a high efficiency condensing oil-fired boiler in the Brookhaven Center (Bldg. 30).