The public wish list for battery makers is pretty straightforward. People want batteries that work for days without needing to be recharged, don’t leak or catch fire, and provide reliable energy storage for many years.
Our currently available energy storage technology meets those needs for several categories of batteries. But as a nation, the United States has an urgent unmet need for safe and reliable long-duration energy storage on a massive scale. Fulfilling that need will require new kinds of batteries capable of routinely providing energy to our electric grid and hauling heavy freight long distances.
The Energy Storage Research Alliance (ESRA), a new Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Innovation hub, will meet those needs by accelerating the discovery of new battery materials and chemistries that use Earth-abundant components and green manufacturing processes.