Integrated Biorefinery Facility North High Bay Revitalization Custom Equipment

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is revitalizing the Integrated Biorefinery Research Facility (IBRF) North High Bay (NHB) to enhance its capacity for piloting biomass conversion and waste carbon utilization technologies. After the renovation, new process equipment will be required to establish a flexible, the plug-and-play environment for research and testing.

The objective of this project is to design, build and commission process equipment for use in scale-up piloting experiments. Researchers will use this equipment to advance NREL’s mission of developing renewable technologies for commercial deployment. 

This project will support the engineering design, procurement, and fabrication of plug-and-play equipment, sized for a production capacity of approximately one barrel per day. The design will prioritize value engineering, operational flexibility, and process safety to maximize scalability and adaptability.  By providing standard unit operations, the equipment will make it easier for researchers to test technologies in a continuous, integrated manner, lowering the barriers to conducting pilot experiments.

NREL is seeking additional expertise in the area of this process equipment design, fabrication and procurement for a process of this magnitude. 

11/3/25: Amendment 1 posted - Q&A's + added Attachment 5.

11/12/25: Amendment 2 posted - Q&A's.

12/16/25: Amendment 3 posted - Q&A + updated attachments 2 and 3, updated proposal due date to 1/30/2026