Advanced Research On Batteries Planned

The Department of Energy announced last week that it will create an advanced research hub to focus on accelerating R&D on electrochemical energy storage technologies for transportation and the electricity grid. The hub will be the fourth that DOE has formed to bring together researchers, scientists, and engineers in industry, academe, and national labs to advance research programs. The battery program’s goal, DOE says, is to “develop working, scalable prototype devices that demonstrate radically new approaches for electrochemical storage” and to overcome manufacturing limitations by cutting complexity and costs. Ultimately, the department hopes to reduce the risk enough that industry will develop innovations discovered by the hub and move new products to market. DOE established three similar hubs to explore advanced nuclear reactor designs, to improve building energy efficiency, and to make fuels directly from sunlight.