National Renewable Energy Lab partnering with Panasonic, Excel to optimize load profile of planned Denver development

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently announced that it is working with Panasonic Corporation and Xcel Energy to model and optimize the energy load profile of a planned mixed-use development in Denver, Colorado.

NREL will use its Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) to model the load profile of the development, Peña Station NEXT. It will also demonstrate its URBANopt software, a tool for modeling buildings and district energy currently under development at NREL.

“The NREL partnership with Panasonic and Xcel Energy helps deliver on our shared vision for clean, affordable, and reliable energy systems at a pace and scale that matters for our society,” Juan Torres, NREL’s associate laboratory director for energy systems integration, said. “As a national user facility, the Energy Systems Integration Facility at NREL is an ideal place for both Panasonic and Xcel Energy to analyze and optimize the project’s energy master plan before construction, in a way that benefits all involved.”

The project will use URBANopt to analyze the predicted dynamic energy consumption of corporate office space, retail space, multifamily dwellings, a hotel, parking, and street lighting at the 382-acre development.

This data will be input into Xcel Energy’s grid distribution modeling tools to create a design framework that can be used to integrate more distributed energy resources before the development is constructed.