High performance materials, including both functional materials and structural materials, hold the key to innovation across many critical energy technologies critical to national security and economic growth. But with ambitious national targets to increase America’s energy supply and reduce energy costs for the consumer, advanced materials’ traditional 15-20 years-to-market timeframe isn’t keeping pace with America’s goals to achieve a dominant clean energy economy.

Through the Energy Materials Network (EMN), the Energy Department is taking a different approach to materials research and development (R&D) that aims to accelerate solutions to the nation’s toughest materials challenges in the energy sector. The EMN has established a network of laser-focused consortia leveraging the world-class capabilities at the Energy Department’s national laboratories to better integrate all phases of R&D, from discovery to scale-up. The EMN consortia are set up to facilitate stakeholder access to the national laboratories’ capabilities, tools, and expertise to accelerate the materials development cycle and enable U.S. manufacturers to deliver innovative, made-in-America products to the world market. 

Each EMN consortium brings together leaders from the national labs, industry, and academia to focus on specific classes of materials aligned with the nation’s most pressing energy challenges. Each consortium has its own website with a designated point-of-contact dedicated to facilitating stakeholder engagements.  The EMN consortia that have been launched to date are highlighted below: