f Alexander Graham Bell encountered a smartphone in 2014, he wouldn’t know
what to make of it. Yet the electric grid hasn’t undergone nearly as much transformation.
“If Thomas Edison were alive today, he’d recognize our electric grid,” says
Drew Detamore, PhD, PMP, deputy director of sustainability, infrastructure
transformation, engineering and operations, National Renewable Energy Labo-
ratory (NREL), Golden, Colorado, USA. The innovation lag stems in part from
how difficult it is to experiment on the existing grid. “You can’t shut the grid
down, because the country needs it at all times.”
To make way for innovation, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), a PMI
Global Executive Council member, found a clever workaround: It would build
the Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), a hyper-efficient research center
on the NREL campus for energy scientists to develop and test renewable energy
technologies and learn how to integrate them into the existing grid. At the heart
of the US$135 million, 182,500-square-foot ( 17,000-square-meter) facility are
“I believe ESIF is going to
revolutionize the way renewable
energy is used. It’s going to
modernize the entire grid system.”
—Matt Graham, PMP
Project
Year
FINALIS
Sunrise at the Energy Systems
Integration Facility (ESIF)
at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL)
in Golden, Colorado, USA
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From left, Matt Graham, PMP,
federal project director, DoE Golden
Field Office; Drew Detamore,
PhD, PMP, deputy director of
sustainability, infrastructure
transformation, engineering and
operations, NREL; Ken Powers, chief
operating officer and deputy lab
director, NREL; and Brian Larsen,
PMP, senior project manager, NREL
