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Center of collaboration
News Article, April 28, 2022 • It may not be common knowledge within Sandia that the Labs are home to the Plasma Research Facility, but those who study plasma around the nation and the world are not only acutely aware, they are also coming in great numbers to perform experiments and work with the experts. “There are...
From left, Malik Tahiyat, from University of South Carolina, and Sandia scientists Dirk van den Bekerom, Erxiong Huang, and Jonathan Frank are all performing experiments in the Plasma Research Facility. Photo by Angie Zhang

Creating diamonds to shed light on the quantum world
News Article, September 26, 2022 • Diamonds are a scientist’s best friend. That much is at least true for physicist Andy Mounce, whose work with diamond quantum sensors at Sandia National Laboratories has earned him the DOE’s Early Career Research Award. As a scientist in Sandia’s Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, he specializes in making microscopic sensors...
Sandia National Laboratories’ Andy Mounce makes microscopic sensors to try to understand quantum materials at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies. He is one of four employees to earn DOE’s Early Career Research Award. (Photo by Bret Latter

Creating the self-healing grid of the future
News Article, March 14, 2024 • Michael Ropp, Electrical Engineer Self-healing electrical grids: It may sound like a concept from science fiction, with tiny robots or some sentient tech crawling around fixing power lines, but in a reality not far from fiction a team of researchers is bringing this idea to life. What’s not hard to...
Michael Ropp poses for a photo at Sandia’s Distributed Energy Technology Lab (DETL) on Oct. 13, 2023. His team is working on ways for an energy microgrids to self-heal using computer algorithms. Photo by Craig Fritz/Sandia National Labs

CSP seminar series session focuses on bulk solids handling
News Article, January 8, 2025 • Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility welcomes Greg Mehos, director of Greg Mehos & Associates LLC, for the next session of the Concentrating Solar Power Seminar Series. “Storage and Flow of Bulk Solids,” will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, from 10:00 a.m. MST to 11:00 a.m. MST. When compared to...

HelioCon Highlight: Solar Dynamics, NSTTF to demonstrate off-the-shelf wireless control system
News Article, September 6, 2023 • Earlier this year the Heliostat Consortium, co-led by Sandia National Laboratories and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), announced seven awards related to a request for proposals (RFP) targeting the U.S. Department of Energy’s goals for heliostat cost reduction, sustained multifaceted innovation, and improved solar field performance. Sandia’s National Solar...
Two technologist stand atop the solar tower with the helioststa and control room behind them

HelioCon’s latest request for proposals supports widespread use of concentrating solar power
News Article, January 29, 2024 • The Heliostat Consortium has released its next request for proposals focused on lowering the costs of heliostat technologies, improving performance, and creating new heliostat industry opportunities. Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the consortium consists of National Renewable Energy Laboratory (lead) and partnering organizations Sandia National Laboratories and the...

International team plans to transform battery databases
News Article, January 30, 2023 • A consortium of researchers, including Sandia battery experts Yuliya Preger and Valerio De Angelis, are working together to stimulate battery innovation by developing battery databases. Ultimately, they hope to expand the role of batteries in supporting the transformation of electric grid infrastructure including the integration of renewable energy resources and...
Two researchers stand by battery testing equipment

Modeling, data opportunities available for photovoltaic performance and modeling community
News Article, July 28, 2023 • The Photovoltaic (PV) Performance and Modeling Collaborative (PVPMC) has announced several upcoming solar research opportunities that may be of interest to the PVPMC community, including PV modeling comparisons and the chance to participate in the Department of Energy’s Solar Data Bounty Prize. 2023 Blind PVPMC Modeling Comparison Call for Participants:...
A researcher stands among a field of photovoltaic solar panels

National Solar Thermal Test Facility and University of Arizona partner for HelioCon project
News Article, January 31, 2024 • Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility is partnering with the University of Arizona's Professor J. Roger Angel for one of four projects the Heliostat Consortium awarded last year. The project, “Twisting Heliostats with Closed Loop Tracking,” targets the U.S. Department of Energy’s goals for heliostat cost reduction, sustained multifaceted innovation,...

National Solar Thermal Test Facility prepares for new tower construction
News Article, January 23, 2023 • Construction on the new tower at Sandia National Laboratories’ National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) is planned to begin Feb. 16, 2023, with a groundbreaking ceremony to take place at the facility. The tower is part of the Phase III, $25 million award announced by The U.S. Department of Energy...

National Solar Thermal Test Facility to take part in American Solar Energy Society Virtual Tour
News Article, September 30, 2022 • Sandia National Laboratories’ (Sandia) Renewable Energy programs will participate in the American Solar Energy Society’s National Solar Tour Oct. 1-2, 2022. The largest grassroots solar, renewable energy, and sustainable living event in the nation will offer a glimpse into the renewable energy research and development taking place at Sandia, and...

New virtual tour that’s got the power
News Article, April 3, 2023 • It hasn’t harnessed the power of Shazam, yet, but the Distributed Energy and Technologies Laboratory (DETL) is exploring how to integrate emerging technologies into today’s energy grid. Discover everything DETL is doing with solar power, electric vehicles, battery technology and more, all from the comfort of your desktop or mobile...

OpenCSP, a new platform for open code and data, launches during SolarPACES 2024
News Article, October 10, 2024 • Sandia National Laboratories’ Concentrating Solar Power program recently launched OpenCSP, a collaborative environment for CSP code and data development. The new, open-source platform is comprised of source code, applications and data to enable collaborative development for the CSP community worldwide. The platform’s launch was announced this week during SolarPACES 2024...
heliostats reflectng sunset at NSTTF

Safer, more powerful batteries for electric cars, power grid
News Article, March 15, 2022 • Solid-state batteries with little liquid electrolyte are safer than lithium-ion batteries Solid-state batteries, currently used in small electronic devices like smart watches, have the potential to be safer and more powerful than lithium-ion batteries for things such as electric cars and storing energy from solar panels for later use. However,...
Sandia National Laboratories engineers, examine a lithium-ion battery in front of a specially designed battery testing chamber.

Sandia hosts first workshop devoted to photovoltaic connectors
News Article, July 16, 2024 • The Sandia-EPRI co-hosted Photovoltaic (PV) Connector Reliability Workshop will take place Wednesday, July 17, 2024, from 1-5 p.m. ET, in Charlotte, N.C. The event will occur in tandem with the larger EPRI 7th Annual Wind and Solar Operation and Management (O&M) Innovation Workshop held July 16-18, 2024. The specialized gathering...
image of a connector that connects one pv pnael with another

Sandia researcher wins career achievement award from Asian technical society
News Article, September 29, 2022 • The Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers has selected Sandia National Laboratories materials scientist Hongyou Fan to receive its 2022 Career Achievement Award. “It is evident that you embody the reason SASE created this category, and we are proud to present you this award,” wrote the organization’s CEO and Executive...

Sandia solar facilities to host American Solar Energy Society conference tour
News Article, March 25, 2022 • The 51st Annual National Solar Conference will be held June 21-24, 2022, in Albuquerque, NM, at the University of New Mexico campus and online. Hosted by the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and the New Mexico Solar Energy Association (NMSEA) this year’s technical sessions will include topics such as: Grid...

Sandia studies vulnerabilities of electric vehicle charging infrastructure
News Article, November 17, 2022 • Review of vulnerabilities helps prioritize grid protections, informs policy makers With electric vehicles becoming more common, the risks and hazards of a cyberattack on electric vehicle charging equipment and systems also increases. Jay Johnson, an electrical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, has been studying the varied vulnerabilities of electric vehicle charging...
Kaedi Sanchez plugs in her car at a City of Albuquerque electric vehicle charger before heading to work. Sandia National Laboratories researchers have been studying the vulnerabilities of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, including public chargers, to better inform policymakers. (Photo by Craig Fritz)

Sandia switches to hydrogen weather balloons
News Article, May 24, 2023 • Hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle, Sandia National Laboratories researchers ensure the collection of important weather and climate data. By switching the gas used in their weather balloons, they have reduced their metaphorical footprint on the fragile Arctic ecosystem. More than three years ago, the Sandia-operated atmospheric measurement...
A hydrogen-filled weather balloon launches automatically from a Department of Energy atmospheric measurement facility in Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow. About three years ago, Sandia National Laboratories switched from launching helium-filled balloons to launching hydrogen-filled balloons to reduce costs and carbon emissions. (Photo by Ben Bishop)

Sandia’s concentrating solar quarterly seminar addresses challenges associated with surfaces at high temperatures
News Article, June 22, 2022 • Sandia National Laboratories’ Concentrating Solar Power Program will present its third quarterly concentrating solar seminar, “Textured Surfaces for Applications in Concentrating Solar Power,” on June 23, 2022, from 8:30 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. MDT. Professor Ranga Pitchumani, of the Advanced Materials and Technologies Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering...

Scientists chip away at a metallic mystery, one atom at a time
News Article, September 28, 2022 • Gray and white flecks skitter erratically on a computer screen. A towering microscope looms over a landscape of electronic and optical equipment. Inside the microscope, high-energy, accelerated ions bombard a flake of platinum thinner than a hair on a mosquito’s back. Meanwhile, a team of scientists studies the seemingly chaotic...
In this photo from 2020, Christopher Barr, right, a former Sandia National Laboratories postdoctoral researcher, and University of California, Irvine, professor Shen Dillon operate the In-situ Ion Irradiation Transmission Electron Microscope. Barr was part of a Sandia team that used the one-of-a-kind microscope to study atomic-scale radiation effects on metal. (Photo by Lonnie Anderson)

Sodium-ion battery safety research: Advancing the next generation of energy storage technology
News Article, June 25, 2024 • Sandia National Laboratories’ Battery Abuse Testing Lab, the Department of Energy’s core facility for battery safety, is investigating the safety of sodium-ion battery technology. Due to sodium’s abundance and an electrochemistry that resembles lithium-ion batteries in some ways, sodium-ion batteries are being considered for grid storage and automotive applications. The...

Successful G3P3 receiver test is a step towards commercial scalability
News Article, September 18, 2024 • Researchers at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility have successfully tested the Generation 3 Particle Pilot Plant’s falling particle receiver. This new receiver is double the size of its predecessor and operates at two megawatts of concentrated radiative energy. The test represents an important step toward the commercial scalability of...
Results 1–25 of 31