To inform electric and transportation sector analysis in the United States, each year NREL provides a robust set of modeling input assumptions for energy technologies (the Annual Technology Baseline) and a diverse set of potential electricity generation futures or modeling scenarios (Standard Scenarios). In 2020, an Annual Technology Baseline is provided for the transportation sector for the first time.

The ATB is a populated framework to identify technology-specific cost and performance parameters or other investment decision metrics across a range of fuel price conditions as well as site-specific conditions for electric generation technologies at present and with projections through 2050.