Session 1A (joint session with Engineering Track session 1A):
Government-Sponsored Battery R&D
The U.S. Department of Energy is spending well over $100 million per year on battery R&D with the aim to develop the battery systems of the future, which will have higher performance and longer life and a lower price tag than the current systems. In this unique session, battery R&D program managers from some of the leading national labs will discuss their organizations’ activities in this domain. Following these presentations, a series of 8-minute talks will be offered by poster presenters—both from national labs and other battery research centers—whose posters will be on display during the poster session that will close the day’s technical program.
Session Chairman: Dave Howell, Program Manager for Hybrid Electric Systems R&D Vehicle Technologies Office, U.S. Department of Energy
Mr. Dave Howell is the Program Manager for Hybrid Electric Systems R&D for the Vehicle Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy Headquarters in Washington DC. He is responsible for managing the Department’s R&D portfolio of projects related to electric drive vehicle batteries, drive components, and vehicle systems analysis and testing. He is also the Department’s Technology Development Manager for the Electric Drive Vehicle Battery Manufacturing Initiative grants awarded through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and serves as the Department’s representative to the United States Advanced Battery Consortium Management Committee. Mr. Howell has over 28 years of experience planning and successfully executing complex, multi-disciplined research & development activities that include hybrid and electric vehicle R&D, advanced battery research and manufacturing, advanced structural materials research and processing, and advanced lubricants & precision mechanisms.
SESSION AGENDA
U.S. DOE Electric Drive Vehicle Battery R&D Impacts, Progress, and Plans Dave Howell, Program Manager for Hybrid Electric Systems R&D Vehicle Technologies Office, U.S. Department of Energy
The U.S. has actively supported the development of cleaner, more efficient automotive technologies over the long term. Impetus for these efforts has come from several legislative mandates – including certain provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through its Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO), often in close partnership with industry, supports the development and deployment of advanced vehicle technologies with electric drive systems. The fiscal year 2015 DOE VTO battery R&D funding totals nearly $80 million. R&D has continued to focus on the development of high-energy batteries for PEVs as well as very high power devices for hybrid vehicles. This paper summarizes the current status of VTO-supported battery R&D projects and highlights the many significant research breakthroughs resulting from its battery research activities. It also provides an overview of the current market adoption of HEV and EV vehicles in the U.S. and an account of how this R&D impacts both the emerging market and the nascent domestic battery manufacturing capability.
Progress in EV Energy Storage at ARPA-e Ping Liu, Program Director, ARPA-e
Since its inception, ARPA-E has invested in a wide range of energy storage technologies targeted at EV applications. A recent endeavor is the Robust Affordable Next Generation EV-Storage (RANGE) program launched in 2012. Unlike previous efforts focusing on developing cells with higher specific energy than lithium-ion, the RANGE program attempts to maximize vehicle level specific energy, which directly determines EV range. A key approach of the program is to invest in energy storage systems that are inherently tolerant to abuse. This opens the door for under-explored chemistries and architectures including:
High-energy aqueous batteries and flow cells
Non-aqueous batteries and flow cells with inherent safe designs
Solid-state batteries
Multifunctional energy storage systems
This presentation will provide a status update on the RANGE program, with technical highlights in:
Aqueous electrolytes with widened stability window
High capacity redox couples in aqueous electrolytes
Materials and cell designs that prevent/mitigate shorting of non-aqueous batteries
Dimensionally stable solid state batteries
Load bearing and energy absorption battery pack designs
Finally, the presentation will provide a brief update on other EV energy storage projects at ARPA-E as well as discuss potential new research directions.
Overview of Battery Research and Development at Berkeley Lab. Venkat Srinivasan, Staff Scientist,Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies (BATT) Electrochemical Technologies Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
While there has been significant progress in the electrification of vehicles, more is needed to ensure widespread penetration, especially in the area of cost reduction. New materials, and new ways of using well-established materials, hold the key to a fully electric future. This talk will describe the efforts at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in ensuring such a future. With research spanning the innovation spectrum from fundamental understanding of electrochemical behavior all the way to transfer of technology and close collaboration with industry, Berkeley Lab has had a deep impact on the battery landscape. The talk will describe the research thrusts in the area of new materials, sophisticated characterization techniques, multi-scale modeling, and device fabrication and testing that are closely linked to ensure a comprehensive effort to develop the next generation battery systems. Finally, the talk will describe a innovative new mechanism Berkeley Lab has pioneered in the area of industrial engagement including a technology acceleration program called CalCharge. Companies can now start work with Berkeley Lab in a matter of weeks via a streamlined process that is unique in its design.
Overview of Battery R&D at Argonne National Laboratory Jeff Chamberlain, Deputy Director for Development and Demonstration, Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory has a long history discovering materials that enable the development and manufacture of battery technology. While the majority of Argonne's research has been historically aimed at the electrification of the vehicular drive train, in the last several years there has been a growing focus on an attempt to discover new electrochemical couples and materials for grid-scale energy storage systems. This talk will provide an overview of Argonne's research portfolio across transportation and grid storage, spanning from materials discovery to materials development both for lithium-ion systems and for beyond-lithium-ion systems. Projects in this overview have a long history of support from DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, including research that is part of the DOE Exploratory Battery Materials Research, the Applied Battery Research, and the Advanced Battery Development, System Analysis, and Testing programs. The speaker will also cover research being performed in projects supported by the DOE's Office of Basic Energy Sciences, including both the CEES-II Energy Frontier Research Center, and the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research.
