The DOE is soliciting proposals from the national laboratories and industry partners to pursue radical innovations for American battery manufacturing leadership. The agency will directly fund the national labs to establish public-private partnerships that solve engineering challenges for advanced battery materials and devices, with a focus on de-risking, scaling and accelerating the adoption of new technologies.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office and Vehicles Technologies Office will jointly invest up to $12 million in projects that address capability gaps for next-generation lithium-based battery technologies through the following four areas:

• Materials processing and scale-up
• Innovative/advanced electrode and cell production
• Designer materials and electrodes
• Formation

Interested industry partners should contact the national laboratories directly about opportunities to collaborate. Full applications from the National Laboratories are due on July 17, 2020.

Individual project awards will range from $500,000 to $3 million over 24 to 36 months. A 50/50 cost share will be required between DOE and the private partner, which can include an in-kind contribution. Funds will be awarded directly to the national laboratories to support work with companies under Cooperative Research and Development Agreements.

This funding opportunity is a part of the Energy Storage Grand Challenge, a DOE effort to create and sustain global leadership in energy storage utilization and exports with a secure domestic manufacturing supply chain that does not depend on foreign sources of critical materials.

Source: DOE