The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced the beginning of the design and construction of a $75 million Grid Storage Launchpad (GSL) to accelerate energy storage innovation, boost clean energy adaptation and resilience in the country’s grid.
GSL will be located at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington, and will include 30 research laboratories, a few of which will be testing centers capable of assessing prototypes and new grid energy storage technologies under real-world grid operating conditions.
“The Grid Storage Launchpad facility will bring together researchers and industry from around the country to modernize and add flexibility to the power grid, advance storage technologies, and boost the use of clean energy,” said Jennifer M. Granholm, Secretary of Energy.
“Deploying new grid technologies means we can get more renewable power on the system, support a growing fleet of electric vehicles, make our grid more reliable and resilient, and secure our clean energy future.”
The GSL facility will include a collaborative space with flexible workstations including Fellowship Labs which aim to provide dedicated space for researchers to incubate storage technologies originating from the US research and development community.
According to DOE, GSL will focus on three outcomes to advance grid energy storage development:
Collaboration: Bringing DOE, multidisciplinary researchers, and industry together at the facility will lower the barriers to innovation and deployment of grid-scale energy storage.
Validation: The facility will enable independent testing of next-generation grid energy storage materials and systems under realistic grid operating conditions.
Acceleration: From benchtop to systems, the facility will de-risk and speed the development of new technologies by propagating rigorous performance requirements.
PNNL has been authorized to select a design and construction contractor for the facility and the construction is expected to start by the end of this year. The facility is expected to be operational and ready for occupancy by 2025.
“It took 40 years to get to the current state of today’s lithium-ion battery technology, but we need to move much faster to develop the long-duration, low-cost batteries needed to meet the significant challenges of decarbonizing the energy system,” said Steven Ashby, Director of PNNL.
“The GSL will speed up the process considerably by doing the work needed to develop and deploy new grid storage technologies,” he added.
In addition to federal funding, the Washington State Department of Commerce has committed $8.3 million for advanced research equipment and specialized instrumentation that will provide insights into the behavior of battery materials.