The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has selected JE Dunn Construction and SmithGroup as the design-build team for a new laboratory facility that will accelerate market-ready products needed for a clean energy transition.
As the new face of NREL’s South Table Mountain Campus in Golden, Colo., the 127,000-sf Energy Materials and Processing at Scale (EMAPS) laboratory will create a direct path from lab-scale materials and process innovations to pilot-scale integration and production. The project is slated to break ground in late 2024.
The laboratory’s design will provide opportunities for engineers, scientists, industry partners, and other DOE laboratories to work together in shared lab facilities focused on clean energy innovations. This collaborative, multidisciplinary approach will accelerate the process scale-up and market adoption of advanced energy materials.
Energy storage, advanced manufacturing among clean energy initiatives
Specifically, EMAPS will enable materials and process innovations in energy storage, advanced manufacturing, grid modernization, and net-zero chemicals and fuels for transportation and industrial decarbonization.
In addition, the laboratory will address end-of-life and circularity challenges across multiple energy technology platforms with a focus on polymers, packaging, and waste streams during and after production.
With building design now underway, EMAP will provide modern, open, and flexible spaces that can accommodate rapid experimentation among researchers. Featuring a three-story collaborative lab and office tower, the center will facilitate flexibility and reconfigurability to serve different research insights and needs. Researchers will be able to move easily from workstation computers to testing in labs to manufacturing testing in pilot bays.
The design will align with NREL’s focus on sustainability, solar orientation and daylighting, energy efficiency, and site preservation. With its sustainable, high-performance design, EMAPS will aim for a minimum of LEED Gold certification.
A decade ago, JE Dunn and SmithGroup partnered with NREL to complete the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), a 180,000-sf research building adjacent to the future site of EMAPS.
On the Building Team:
Owner: U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
Design architect, architect of record, and MEP engineer: SmithGroup
Structural engineer: Martin/Martin
General contractor: JE Dunn Construction
Related Stories
Giants 400 | Feb 9, 2023
New Giants 400 download: Get the complete at-a-glance 2022 Giants 400 rankings in Excel
See how your architecture, engineering, or construction firm stacks up against the nation's AEC Giants. For more than 45 years, the editors of Building Design+Construction have surveyed the largest AEC firms in the U.S./Canada to create the annual Giants 400 report. This year, a record 519 firms participated in the Giants 400 report. The final report includes 137 rankings across 25 building sectors and specialty categories.
University Buildings | Feb 7, 2023
Kansas City University's Center for Medical Education Innovation can adapt to changes in medical curriculum
The Center for Medical Education Innovation (CMEI) at Kansas City University was designed to adapt to changes in medical curriculum and pedagogy. The project program supported the mission of training leaders in osteopathic medicine with a state-of-the-art facility that leverages active-learning and simulation-based training.
Mass Timber | Jan 30, 2023
Net-positive, mass timber building will promote research on planetary well-being in Barcelona
ZGF Architects, along with Barcelona-based firms MIRAG and Double Twist, have designed a net-positive, mass timber center for research on planetary well-being. Located in Barcelona, the Mercat del Peix Research Center will bring together global experts in the experimental sciences, social sciences, and humanities to address challenges related to the future of the planet.
Adaptive Reuse | Dec 21, 2022
University of Pittsburgh reinvents century-old Model-T building as a life sciences research facility
After opening earlier this year, The Assembly recently achieved LEED Gold certification, aligning with the school’s and community’s larger sustainability efforts.
Data Centers | Nov 28, 2022
Data centers are a hot market—don't waste the heat!
SmithGroup's Brian Rener shares a few ways to integrate data centers in mixed-use sites, utilizing waste heat to optimize the energy demands of the buildings.
School Construction | Oct 31, 2022
Claremont McKenna College science center will foster integrated disciplinary research
The design of the Robert Day Sciences Center at Claremont McKenna College will support “a powerful, multi-disciplinary, computational approach to the grand socio-scientific challenges and opportunities of our time—gene, brain, and climate,” says Hiram E. Chodosh, college president.
Higher Education | Oct 24, 2022
Wellesley College science complex modernizes facility while preserving architectural heritage
A recently completed expansion and renovation of Wellesley College’s science complex yielded a modernized structure for 21st century STEM education while preserving important historical features.
Laboratories | Oct 5, 2022
Bigger is better for a maturing life sciences sector
CRB's latest report predicts more diversification and vertical integration in research and production.
Laboratories | Sep 12, 2022
Lab space scarcity propels construction demand in life sciences sector
In its 2021 Life Sciences Real Estate Outlook, JLL predicted that access to talent would be a primary concern for an industry sector that had been growing by leaps and bounds. A year later, talent still guides real estate decisions. But market conditions of a different sort were cooling the biotech field: namely, investors that have soured on startups which underperformed after going public. What this means for new construction and renovation going forward is unpredictable, as the drivers behind life sciences’ surge are still palpable.
| Sep 2, 2022
New UMass Medical School building enables expanded medical class sizes, research labs
A new nine-story, 350,000 sf biomedical research and education facility under construction at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester, Mass., will accommodate larger class sizes and extensive lab space.
