NREL and AWS Bring Energy Data to Analysts and Researchers

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), based in Golden, Colorado, is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy-efficiency research and development. They are a true cloud visionary making an impact across renewable energy and energy efficiency research by bringing energy data access to the forefront.

Sharing information and fostering collaboration among scientific communities are long-standing goals for NREL. If more people are able to access the data, then more discoveries can be made. NREL’s OpenEI.org Open Energy Information portal is focused on publishing and sharing research data from a variety of sources. The organization currently hosts dozens of public-facing websites, which are updated frequently with the latest energy information.

To build a collaborative data repository, NREL needed to find a platform to meet all of its specific needs to create a scalable environment, so it is possible for anyone to use the site. Yet, it must be secure, due to the sensitivity of the data involved (to comply with all mandated FISMA cyber security requirements).

NREL turned to AWS to design and launch a moderate cloud environment to host data, such as the new Marine Hydrokinetic Data Repository (MHKDR) application, a geothermal energy research database, and several other sites that focus on collaboration and data access. Once the data can officially be released, the public gets access to the data for research purposes.

NREL is utilizing the AWS Cloud for ground-breaking energy data access web platforms and is able to focus on data quality and continue to share their research to others to make a difference in our environment. Learn more about the immediate benefits they received that helped their research and the research community here.