Posting Title

Graduate (Year-Round) Intern - Industrial and Fuel Supply Optimization Modeling & Analysis

.

Location

CO - Golden

.

Position Type

Intern (Fixed Term)

.

Hours Per Week

20

.

Working at NREL

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Golden, Colorado is the nation's primary laboratory for research and development of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

Join a team of world-class scientists, engineers, and visionaries dedicated to shaping the world’s energy future through cutting-edge research and innovation. From our vision to our NREL community, we are unique in the research community. We are focused on impact. From our work in basic sciences to systems engineering, analysis, demonstration, and deployment, we are focused on solving market-relevant problems that result in advanced, secure, reliable, and affordable energy systems. We are trusted clean energy leaders, developing cost-saving solutions that make U.S. industries more competitive, and support job creation and economic growth across rural and urban communities.

At NREL, we offer a unique, mission-driven work environment with cutting-edge facilities and multidisciplinary research teams. NREL's environment offers strong partnerships with industry, academia, and other national laboratories, as well as professional development opportunities and a competitive benefits package for employees.

Learn about NREL’s critical objectives: NREL's Mission and Vision.

Job Description

The Integrated Modeling and Economic Analysis Group develops and applies energy and economic models to evaluate and inform the evolution of the energy system and the associated implications for the economy, environment, and society. We are looking forward to welcoming a new researcher intern to our team to contribute to a growing body of research evaluating alternative pathways to cross-sectoral decarbonization of the US economy.

Working with senior researchers, the successful candidate will assist with data and complementary coding for the Fuels and Industry Integrated Optimization (FINITO) model—a new model simulating the evolution of the US industrial and fuel supply sectors—to a range of research topics, including:

• evaluation of the implications of alternative policy designs for industrial decarbonization,
• evaluation of effects of research and development (R&D) driven improvements to the cost and performance of clean energy technologies,
• evaluation of how industrial decarbonization would interact with other energy sectors (e.g., electricity),
• explore impacts of a clean manufacturing transition on US manufacturing competitiveness.

In particular, the researcher will contribute to identifying, synthesizing, and implementing new data within the FINITO modeling structure; editing processing scripts; data workflow and updates; visualization of data via Tableau. In addition, the intern will assist in communication products, including presentations to deliver at workshops/conferences, technical articles for submission to peer-reviewed journals, as well as shorter written products for policy audiences.

The ideal candidate will have a high level of enthusiasm to expand one’s knowledge of the energy system, learn new skills, and apply such knowledge and skills to help identify how the US can transition to a sustainable energy system, what the implications are for society, and how policy can be designed to help shape those outcomes. We welcome applicants pursuing advanced degrees from any field, but a strong applicant must have experience developing and applying python scripts and a solid background in data management and analysis.

Job responsibilities include:

• Assisting in research that generates independent, high quality, and reproducible results.
• Research, acquisition, and analysis of large data sets.
• Assist in development of new data architectures to flexibly describe infrastructure systems.
• Assist in executing scenarios and visualizing, analyzing, and interpreting results.
• Assisting senior researchers in the design, implementation, and reporting of the research project.
• Contributing to technical reports, journal articles, and presentations.

While this position is advertised at an average of 20 hours per week, the hiring team can also consider applicants who express interest in working for 40 hours per week.