Overview
Personal Profile
Wesley Cole is a member of the Capacity Expansion & Electricity Markets Group in the Grid Planning and Analysis Center, and seeks to improve understanding of how the U.S. power system might evolve over the coming decades. He has extensive experience in building and applying long-term planning models to help inform decision-making in the power sector. He actively collaborates with other modeling and analysis teams outside of NLR to advance modeling and analysis capabilities.
Research Interests
Long-term resource planning
Power sector capacity expansion modeling
Energy storage
Professional Experience
Sabbatical, Wholesale Marketing and Supply, Grant Public Utility District (2022)
Assistant Instructor, University of Texas at Austin (2013)
Education/Academic Qualification
Bachelor, Chemical Engineering, Brigham Young University
PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin
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Collaborations and Top Research Areas From the Past 5 Years
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Advanced Gravity Energy Storage System Leveraging Idle Wells for Novel Efficiency and Sustainability
Akindipe, D., Akar, S., Shlosberg, D., Turan, M. & Cole, W., 2026, 8 p. National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR).Research output: NLR › Fact Sheet
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Gravity Well Commercial Economics Assessment: Potential Revenue and Cost: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-22-23269
Akindipe, D., Turan, M., Akar, S., Cole, W., Shlosberg, D. & Taverna, N., 2026, 57 p.Research output: NLR › Technical Report
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Impacts of Solar Land Availability on the Evolution of the U.S. Power System: Article No. 125608
Cole, W., Lopez, A., Pham, A., Rivers, M. & Sergi, B., 2026, In: Renewable Energy. 264, 12 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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The Past, Present, and Future of Peaking Thermal Power Plants in the United States: Article No. 114886
Vanatta, M., Sergi, B., Cole, W., Denholm, P. & Mai, T., 2026, In: iScience. 29, 3, 9 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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An Interregional Optimization Approach for Time Series Aggregation in Continent-Scale Electricity System Models: Article No. 135830
Brown, P., Cole, W. & Mai, T., 2025, In: Energy. 324, 18 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
2 Scopus Citations
Awards and Honors
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U.S. Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program Award, H2@Scale
Cole, W. (Recipient), 2018
Prize: Honorary award