With Kestrel on Deck, Advanced Computing Hit a Home Run Over 300 Clean Energy Projects

With Kestrel on Deck, Advanced Computing Hit a Home Run Over 300 Clean Energy Projects

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) high-performance computing (HPC), efficient data center operations, and powerful visualizations have left an indelible stamp on clean energy innovation. As the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) only national laboratory solely dedicated to energy efficiency and renewable energy research, NREL has highlighted the impactful contributions of advanced computing in its Advanced Computing Annual Report for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023.

While the NREL operations team spent much of FY 2023 preparing for, installing, and bringing the new Kestrel HPC system online, NREL's HPC powered over 300 renewable energy projects from every technology office within DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

"Computational approaches are critical to the energy transition," said Ray Grout, center director of NREL's Computational Science Center. "HPC enables the energy community to make critical advances in core science as well as translate scientific discoveries into practical solutions. With Kestrel ready to provide greater computing power, the future of renewable energy is stronger than ever."

Take a peek at the Advanced Computing Annual Report highlights or download the full report to learn how advanced computing contributed to important DOE research, including:

• A 2023 R&D 100 winner-the Simulation and Emulation for Advanced Systems (SEAS) open-source software-used to build virtual communities using modeling and Advanced Research on Integrated Energy Systems (ARIES)-related hardware to validate and de-risk different clean energy solutions before implementing in the field

• A multilaboratory collaboration on analysis pathways to meet Puerto Rico's energy goals in the Puerto Rico Grid Resilience and Transitions to 100% Renewable Energy Study (PR100)

• A project studying the effects of 100% drop-in sustainable aviation fuels on aviation combustor performance.

Kestrel-installed and tested in the laboratory's Energy Systems Integration Facility data center-will provide more than five times the computing power of its predecessor, Eagle, when fully configured. Kestrel's heterogeneous architecture-which includes both CPU-only and GPU-accelerated nodes-is designed to bring a much greater GPU capacity to workloads compared to Eagle, enabling rapidly advancing applications in artificial intelligence and expanding research in new directions for computing.

Learn more about advanced computing capabilities at NREL.