By Heather Lammers

GOLDEN - Batteries are the heart of today’s advanced electric drive vehicles and many manufacturers have their own preference for specific battery geometry and chemistry including their choice of materials for cathodes and anodes. However, all of the manufacturers are concerned about the performance, life, safety and cost of lithium ion batteries even though their designs are varied. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is looking to help the U.S. battery industry with a simple goal — to mass produce better batteries domestically while addressing safety, affordability, life, and performance.

As a result of DOE’s support, more work and funding for battery research is coming to NREL via both indirect and direct avenues thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Last March, President Obama announced $2.4 billion to help drive the development of the next generation of electric drive vehicles in the United States. As part of that announcement, DOE released a competitive solicitation for up to $1.5 billion in federal funding for manufacturing advanced batteries and related drive components.

The funding will spur faster development of batteries for cars with electric powertrains, including hybrid electric, plug-in hybrid electric, all-electric and fuel-cell vehicles. Battery thermal management is crucial in optimizing the performance and reducing the life-cycle costs for these types of batteries. Once manufacturers start cranking out new and more efficient prototypes, they’ll turn to NREL for thermal testing and validation.

“Right now, we already have a back-log of batteries for thermal testing,” NREL Principle Engineer and Energy Storage Task Leader Ahmad Pesaran said. “We know that in one or two years, when the battery companies start producing new batteries to evaluate, we wouldn’t have been able to keep up without the new investment in equipment.”