Battery and Energy Storage Research

Battery and energy storage research covers electrochemical cells and the systems built from them, from electrode and electrolyte materials through manufacturing, safety testing, modelling, grid storage and end-of-life recovery. The research-practice view is organised around a small set of public programmes, shared datasets, test standards and journals rather than around any one chemistry.

In the United States the Department of Energy sets much of the agenda. Its Vehicle Technologies Office funds exploratory battery materials research, applied battery research, and battery development, system analysis and testing, and works with partnerships such as U.S. DRIVE and the United States Advanced Battery Consortium. Battery500, led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory since 2016, aims for cells of up to 500 Wh/kg. The Energy Storage Grand Challenge covers grid-scale work, including the Grid Storage Launchpad at PNNL, and ARPA-E funds early-stage, high-risk projects. In the UK, the Faraday Institution and the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry play comparable roles.

Shared infrastructure matters as much as funding. Battery Archive, supported by the DOE Office of Electricity through Sandia, lets users compare cycling and abuse-test data across institutions. Sandia also offers the Global Energy Storage Database, QuESt and a DC arc flash test database, PyBaMM provides open-source physics-based models, and the EIA-860 survey and USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries supply fleet and mineral data. Two rule sets shape practice: UL 9540A, a fire-propagation test method cited by NFPA 855 and the International Fire Code, and EU Regulation 2023/1542, which has applied since 18 February 2024 across five battery categories. Results appear in the Journal of Power Sources, the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, Nature Energy and Energy Storage Materials, and as ChemRxiv preprints. The specialization hubs cover cell materials, beyond-lithium and solid-state cells, manufacturing, safety, modelling, grid storage and recycling.