Colorado State University Awarded Seat on NREL Board of Directors with New Management Contract

Colorado State University is among the three Colorado research universities that will have a seat on the board of directors of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s management team as part of a new contract announced this week.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it had selected the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC as the management and operating contractor for NREL, which is based in Golden, Colo. The contract which amounts to $1.1 billion during the next five years will be managed by the Alliance. The Alliance, which is owned by Midwest Research Institute and Battelle, has named five research universities to its board of directors: Colorado State University, Colorado School of Mines, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"NREL’s leadership is taking a significant step in connecting with the university community on national energy research, technology and policy development," said Larry Edward Penley, president of Colorado State University. "Colorado State University’s well-recognized energy and environmental research will aid in the development of actionable energy policies at the national level. This appointment is largely thanks to the hard work of the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, which has demonstrated the value of cooperation among the state’s research universities with the nation’s top federal energy laboratory."

The Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory consists of CSU, CU-Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines and NREL whose scientists work together on developing clean and renewable energy technology. Bill Farland, vice president for Research at CSU, has been a member of the Collaboratory’s executive team and will serve as the university’s representative on the NREL board.

"This is an exciting opportunity for Colorado State," Farland said. "We’re going to have a more strategic role to play as a member of the board of directors of this LLC that has management and operations responsibility for NREL. We are expanding a hugely successful partnership with NREL as a Collaboratory partner and leveraging the resources of the premier national energy laboratory to develop game-changing technology and move it out into the marketplace."

-30-