The National Renewable Energy Laboratory based in Golden has a new name to match the shift in U.S. energy policy under President Donald Trump.

The Department of Energy announced it renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to the “National Laboratory of the Rockies” effective immediately on Monday.

The renaming of the lab is meant to highlight the Trump administration’s desire to invest in cheaper energy sources of all kinds, rather than focusing on renewable alternatives, the agency said.

“The energy crisis we face today is unlike the crisis that gave rise to NREL,” said Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson in a news release. “We are no longer picking and choosing energy sources.”

The laboratory sits on a 327-acre campus in Golden by South Table Mountain. It also has a facility 13 miles north called the Flatirons Campus near Boulder.

The Trump administration wants to focus its priorities on building scientific research to “restore American manufacturing, drive down costs, and help this country meet its soaring energy demand,” Robertson added, in which the National Laboratory of the Rockies will play a “vital role.” 

The Trump administration has pushed toward what it calls “energy dominance,” an initiative to remove regulations that are “ideologically motivated” and to limit as many barriers as possible to drive energy costs down.

The Department of Energy is led by Chris Wright, a Denver businessman and founder of oil company Liberty Energy. At his confirmation hearing, he stated he would focus on the U.S. supporting more access to cheaper energy — including geothermal, nuclear, oil and gas.  

Some critics worry the Trump administration is rolling back plans to reduce pollution across the U.S. and efforts to support cleaner energies.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet said the lab should continue its groundbreaking work in pushing for affordable and net-zero energy under its new name.

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THE LAB

The laboratory is a major economic generator in Colorado and had a $1.9 billion economic impact in the fiscal year 2023, according to a report released last year by the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The laboratory is one of the top five employers of Jefferson County, though it has been hit by federal cuts during the Trump administration that led to the lab eliminating 114 jobs earlier this year.

Since the lab was founded, CU Boulder’s report showed the U.S. continues to rely on natural gas and crude oil. Colorado saw “substantial growth” in renewable energy consumption between 2005 and 2022. The use of coal, which used to be a top source of energy alongside natural gas, fell 57% nationally and 40% in Colorado from 2007 to 2022.

Since then, the report said, coal is consumed about as much as renewable energies are.

HISTORY OF THE NREL

It’s not the first time the lab has been renamed. It was originally called the Solar Energy Research Institute when it opened in 1977.

The lab was created in response to the energy crisis sparked after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) raised the price of oil and Saudi Arabia cut off all oil exports to the U.S.

In 1974, President Gerald Ford established the Energy Research and Development Administration — which was later replaced by the Department of Energy — and the Solar Energy Research Institute to invest in an alternative to oil.

It took several more years before it opened in Golden.

As the lab’s research expanded to other energy sources beyond solar, Republican President George H.W. Bush renamed it the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to reflect its growing range and designated the site as an official national lab.

“For decades, this laboratory and its scientific capabilities have pushed the boundaries of what’s possible and delivered impact to the nation,” said Jud Virden, laboratory director of the now-named National Laboratory of the Rockies, in the announcement.

Virden said the lab’s new name “embraces a broader applied energy mission entrusted to us by the Department of Energy to deliver a more affordable and secure energy future for all.”