Energy Storage Grand Challenge Workshop Overview (Text Version)

Below is the text version of the May 1, 2020, Energy Storage Grand Challenge Workshop Overview presentation. View a recording of this presentation.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to the U.S.  Department of Energy  Storage Grand Challenge. We are pleased to have you all here today with us. I am Meredith Braselman, and we will guide you through the workshop today and throughout the month.

First, though, we have a few housekeeping items. If you would like to use closed captioning, please refer to the link that is in the chat box. Please also note that this WebEx call is being recorded and may be posted to the Department of Energy’s website for use internally. If you do not wish to have your voice recorded today, please do not speak during the call. If you do not wish for  your image to be recorded, please turn off your camera or participate by phone. If you speak during the call or use video connection, you  are presumed to consent to recording and the use of your voice or image. If you have any technical issues today, please type them in the chat box and send it to the host. We will be muting lines to minimize background .

So now about today’s workshop. [ Indiscernible - audio muffled] Research and Innovation Act of 2018, the Department of Energy established the Research Technology Investment Committee—or RTIC— to identify potential cross-cutting opportunities in basic and applied science and technology. The Energy Storage Grand Challenge is managed by this committee. Today you will hear from both co-chairs of the RTIC energy storage subcommittee. Alex Fitzsimmons, deputy assistant secretary in  the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and Michael Pesin, deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Electricity. You will also hear from departmental leadership and staff leads and have a chance to ask questions. To get us started today, please welcome Alex Fitzsimmons, deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Alex?

Thank you very much, Meredith. Thank you all for joining us today;  good morning to all of you. We really appreciate all of you being here. I want to give a special thanks to ICF and the team that has been so flexible in moving to a virtual format. I want to give a big thanks to all of you who are joining us here today for this morning and this afternoon. It looks like right now we are over 434 participants and counting. It is just a great turnout, a great show of force that reflects the interest and the importance of the challenge of energy storage. So, thank you all for being flexible, continuing to engage with us and work with us during what we know are very challenging times for you all.

I will keep my remarks relatively brief as Meredith mentioned. The Energy Storage Grand Challenge was established as a result of the culmination of months of work from virtually every program office across the DOE complex. The Energy Storage Grand Challenge was announced by Secretary Brouillette in January as a comprehensive strategy to position the United States to be the global leader in the energy storage technologies of the future, including the technology development but also the associated scale-up and commercialization challenges. Because one of the things that we know and one of the things we discovered going through the RTIC process, the Research and Technology Investment Committee process—we were asked a relatively straightforward question by the secretary, which was, “Does DOE have a comprehensive strategy to position the U.S. for global leadership, and if not, what does DOE need to do to have that strategy so that the U.S. can create and sustain its leadership in the energy storage technologies of the future?”

So, the short answer to that question is no, although DOE invests around $400 million per year in various energy storage technologies, the department has never had an overarching strategy on storage for what we know is a critical suite of technologies and tools that will enable us to have a more reliable, resilient, and flexible energy system—an energy system that we know is changing dramatically and will continue to change. That’s why energy storage is such a priority for the secretary and for DOE, and it is the reason why the secretary announced the Energy Storage Grand Challenge back in January.

One of the things we realized as we were addressing the secretary’s question is that DoE is adept at research and development. We have a long history of significant advances in R&D but we are not always so good at what comes next. And that R&D is necessary but not sufficient for the United States to be the world leader in the energy storage technologies of the future. So, the strategy that we rolled out that we are looking forward to getting feedback from all of you today as we develop our comprehensive roadmap includes research and development as a foundation but builds on that foundation to include associated scale-up challenges.

That is why we rolled out five tracks with track leads, and you will hear from each of them today that includes technology development, it includes technology transition, it includes policy and valuation, and manufacturing and supply chain issues, and workforce development. All five of these are we believe to be critical factors that the United States is going to lead both on the technology but then also on the commercialization. We have seen what can happen when the United States invests resources in developing R&D but doesn’t invest resources in commercializing the technology and making sure that it can be manufactured and deployed here in the United States.

With that, that is why I am so glad you all are here joining us today. This is the first in a series of webinars that we are going to have to collect critical feedback from all of you as we work to lay out a 10-year road map with performance targets that will address all of the issues I just mentioned. With that, we are pleased to have three wonderful keynote speakers today. Kicking it off is the Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes and then we’ll hear from Assistant Secretary Daniel Simmons of EERE, and then finally assistant secretary Bruce Walker from the Office of Electricity. We will now hear from a message from Undersecretary Mark [ Indiscernible ].

It is great to join you for today’s virtual stakeholder energy storage workshop. By any measure, the Trump Administration and the Department of Energy. See, energy storage is a vital part of America’s future as a world- leading producer of secure and reliable energy. Indeed, since 2017, the department has  invested more than $1.2 billion in energy storage research and development. That is $400 million per year. In fact, one of the principal reasons Secretary Brouillette established the research and technology investment committee or RTIC, was to advance a comprehensive strategy in a number of our priority areas, particularly energy storage.   

To build on the work of that committee, the department established the Energy Storage Grand Challenge. The goal of this challenge is to create and sustain U.S. global leadership in the research, development, and commercialization of energy storage technologies to enable the integration of all forms of energy. Our approach to energy storage incorporates five important tracks. The technology development track is focused on R&D with clear performance goals. The manufacturing and supply chains track is focused on technologies and strategies to support  and strengthen U.S. leadership in these areas. The technology transition track is working to ensure that our R&D reaches domestic markets through field validation, public/private partnerships, bankable business model development, and disseminating high-quality market data. The policy and valuation track is providing data, tools, and analysis to appropriately value energy storage.

The workforce development track is advancing DOE’s programs to train and educate the workforce on energy storage systems. Across DOE, we have a number of key energy storage initiatives underway. At EERE, we support energy storage R&D both for grid and mobility applications. This includes leading the department supplied R&D to an advance battery, storage hydropower, and hydrogen fuel cells. As well as increased power system flexibility from thermal storage, renewable energy generation, and flexible  loads.

In the Office of Electricity, we are proceeding with a new grid storage launch pad which will accelerate materials development, testing, and independent evaluation of battery materials and systems for grid applications so we can advance the long-duration energy storage needed to ensure grid resilience.

In the Office of Fossil Energy, we are advancing a range of energy storage technologies and integrating them with fossil-based assets to improve asset flexibility, grid reliability, and environmental performance. Through our coal first initiative, FE is investing in seven studies of energy storage integrated with coal-based power generating units. Several of these include a thermal energy storage component. In the Office of Nuclear Energy, we support integrated energy systems research and development, which couples electrical, thermal, and chemical storage systems with nuclear power to produce clean, affordable, and reliable energy. Through these and other initiatives, we believe that energy storage has a phenomenal future. Before I conclude, I want to highlight two related challenges we face on the road to that brighter tomorrow: supply chain constraints and end-of-life impacts.

The fact is that many of today’s storage technologies contain substantial amounts of critical materials that come from foreign sources. Moreover, the valuable materials contained in these technologies often go to waste because they are not recycled. For example, lithium ion batteries are currently recycled at a rate of less than 5%. So, simply stated, we must consider the implications of our use of critical materials as well as the impact of these advanced technologies at the end-of-life phase. We must invest in strategies at every level of the supply chain to reclaim, recycle, and reuse materials into next-generation energy storage. 

Let me conclude by thanking you again for this opportunity to summarize our important work to help secure our energy future. We look forward to your feedback from the ESDC through the upcoming series of workshops and through a formal request for information. I hope today’s workshop you find will be very productive for all of us. Thank you for allowing me to have an opportunity to address you today. Thank you. 

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us, and my name is Daniel Simmons. I lead the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy. Thank you very much for joining us here today. This is the world we are in, so thank you for overcoming all the challenges that we have to be here today. This webinar is one example of the Department of Energy working to carry out our work under these adverse circumstances. Overall, DOE spends since 2017 about $1.2 billion on energy storage research, about $400 million a year. Until this year, we did not have an overarching strategy for energy storage. That is why secretary Brouillette in January launched the Energy Storage Grand Challenge. From my perspective as the person who has the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, this is very important. One of the reasons is that some of the offices in my portfolio have renewable energy such as wind and solar. Some of the ways that we can unlock the real value of those technologies is through energy storage. That is obvious. We also have our vehicle technology program. Obviously, energy storage is huge to vehicles of the future in terms of hybridization and full electrification, and our hydrogen fuel technology offices. Hydrogen fuel technology is a very exciting technology for the future, but we have a lot of work to overcome the challenges of today as well as with buildings. Buildings are a key way we can think about incorporating energy storage into the grid as well as increasing flexibility of the grid overall. And let me not forget, in fact it’s almost always forgotten, the largest source of energy on the grid today is from p ump storage. Let’s not forget the energy storage that got us to where we are today. I have this very broad portfolio in the EERE; energy storage is critical. One of the things that we like to stress is to think broadly about storage. Work on an overall cohesive strategy on energy storage.

We have seen some incredible cost declines of the past ten years in relation to with electric vehicles and batteries for electrical vehicles. The cost of batteries plummeted, and that is great. We are very excited about that and hope to see those kind of cost declines and other types of energy storage as well. Because energy storage is critical, not only for the electric grid but also for   individual buildings and for transportation. We are looking at the entire picture of energy storage.   

One thing that matters is that the United States has been really some of the leaders in energy storage technology in terms of coming up with the idea for the technology. The most recent two are the most recent Nobel prize for chemistry. Two of the people won for their work done in the United States for work on lithium ion batteries. However, we have not been a leader in the manufacturing of those technologies. As we think to the future with new energy storage technologies, looking at how we can not only how to come up with ideas for the technology but then also have to have manufacturing for those technologies here in the United States. Improving the manufacturability of next-generation technologies as improving supply chains so that we can be producing that here.

And supply chains matter. We will see a number of supply chain challenges and we start to see them in some areas in this new COVID-19 world. We see it in terms of toilet paper of all things. So, supply chains are really, really important. What matters more than anything is the diversity of supply chains. That is something we are taking very seriously, and we’ve been taking seriously for a while at the Department of Energy. So, in my office, energy efficiency and renewable energy, we are trying to contribute in a number of ways. In looking at new battery chemistry, stationary sources, for things like buildings or for mobile sources, for vehicles, as well as looking at renewable technologies and integration of battery and wind or batteries and storage and solar. Looking at using hydrogen as a storage medium for long-term storage and the idea of a hydrogen economy as well as thermal storage technology.

Really, the future of energy is a future of energy integration and storage sits at the center of what that integration can really be, as well as we admit to cheating a little bit when we think about energy storage to make sure we include the building technologies and to make sure we increase the flexibility and resilience of the electric grid by changing how buildings use energy to be more flexible to time shift, whether they use preheating or pre-cooling buildings, that is not technically storage, but the electric grid makes it look like energy storage and can lead overall to a more efficient energy grid. So, R&D supported by my office is looking at these hybrid systems and looking at a whole bunch of different technologies. Looking at improving controls, integrating solar and into buildings and into large-scale applications as well. We are very excited about the potential for energy storage in the future. I encourage you to make the most of this opportunity presented by this webinar and for upcoming workshops. We want to hear from you both through these workshops as well as through the upcoming request for information. As ever, we are here to hear from you. So, please reach out to us. Let us know what you see as the future of energy storage and how we can help drive that future and help it become a reality. Thank you very much. And now, we will hear from Bruce Walker, assistant secretary for the Office of Electricity. Bruce?

Thank you very much. Thank you for this opportunity   to speak today on this very, very important issue. As everybody understands, given the grand challenge, energy storage is a priority for the department as it presents unique opportunities to improve our resilient and reliable energy system today and as we roll into the future. And honestly, as a former grid operator myself, in my 20+ years in the industry, I am keenly aware of the opportunities of grid-scale storage provides, and I wish I had had it when I was sitting at the desk. While the benefits of energy storage are wide and encompass many specific things, one of the keen areas that we are looking at is how it provides support for the nation’s critical defense facilities and the associated defense critical electric infrastructure which DOE and my office, the Office of Electricity, has been working on as result of fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act that was promulgated by Congress in 2015 and how that ties together to really ensure the economic security as well as national security of the United States.

Storage is critical in supporting grid operations, including managing variable renewable resources. Battery technology can provide enhanced functionality; it increases the grid resilience particularly in the case of adverse events and things that we have seen and highlighted in 2019, the worldwide threat assessment that we filed with Congress, as well as the additional and increased deployment of intermittent or variable renewable generation. Batteries are strong and variable generation and really because of the versatility, our expectations that, particularly through the work of this team, the cost will decline, and we also believe that while we are decreasing costs, we can improve our performance. Lastly, again, going back to my roots, the storage provides unique services to help the overall operation of the grid, including but not limited to multi-control and frequency control, and something we have really spent a lot of time recently looking at is black star capabilities, not only from the source but as a [indiscernible ]. Clearly an area where we are focused on from an operational perspective.

DOE itself looks to integrate its entire strategy to position us, you know, based on the things we are doing within the space as the world leader. We want to be able to really scale this from the lab to the marketplace, which is very much focused on what the team talks about this afternoon. As we move toward this domestic manufacturing capability, I would note that just this morning, the president signed an executive order called “Securing the United States’ Full Power System,” which I believe will help enable us further this grand challenge, the capabilities as we move forward specifically as we look to maintain or establish and maintain and deploy storage capabilities throughout the United States and then the rest of the world.

One of the major components that you heard the undersecretary speak about is our grid storage launch pad in the Pacific Northwest National Lab, which will accelerate and validate the storage technologies. I am extremely excited about this partnership with them and the industry to help drive this process forward. And in fact, there is significant funding that was included in the president’s 2021 budget to build upon what was appropriated for this project by Congress and the FY 2020 budget. We are moving at this at a very fast and focused way. So, something that will come to fruition.

I also am concerned that we need to increase our research and development in technologies such as nominal [ indiscernible] batteries, and another areas that focus on is the development more broadly is the solid-state technologies and capabilities, because as we move forward, I believe this will be—and my team believes this is going to be—an enabling technology needed to truly gain a maximum value of storage. It’s another key area that we need to put in the process, and none of this is done without people. The workforce development component is a critical component so that we develop and train the next generation of our workforce to be able to include all of the supply chain value streams, that are enabled to supply storage technology. All of this comes together and requires really bold action. As you heard Alex talk about earlier, the secretary announced earlier this year, and that is we have support through all venues within DOE just illustrated by the participation this morning on this call by some of the leadership. There are a lot of stakeholders in this, and we need to work through those to make sure that we’ve got all of the best and brightest minds in the United States taking a look at this, hence the conference today.

What I would lastly like to say is your engagement is integral in framing our strategy around how to address stakeholder concerns and support the end goals that we have laid out. And I know there has been a tremendous amount of work done by the team pulling this together— very thoughtful work, in-depth, comprehensive, and complex integration of a lot of pieces of information and a lot of strategies to enable a strategic way forward. I would like to thank you for your participation today. And please, be proud of the contributions that you are making to this really critical project. Thank you.

Thank you, Bruce. Bruce is going to stay on to see if anybody has any questions and answer a couple of questions. If you would like to submit a question, put it in the chat box and send it to the host. While we wait for some of those questions are coming in, as we get ready to talk to the panelists, you can also submit questions while the panelists are speaking. We will hold those questions until the end, so please include the speaker’s name or the topic when you submit your question so we will have that specific reference later on. Again, you can submit your questions to the host in the chat box. I will give it just a moment, Bruce.   I have not sing any questions come in. Here we go. Can you clarify how you envision the role of non-battery technologies, e.g., thermal, mechanical, chemical storage for long duration?

Sure. Again, I think when people speak of storage, a lot of the work we do is bidirectional storage, but obviously storage comes in a variety of different forms. I think all of them have a place in our overall energy infrastructure and beyond the electricity system to ensure that we are optimally using energy. I think all of those forms that were listed, among other ones I know are being worked on and [indiscernible ] has significant efforts in this arena are critically important as we move forward as well. It’s very comprehensive. There is no one-size-fits-all. There’s a lot of different capabilities that we need to deploy and focus on as we move forward to address this on a broader scale across the energy infrastructure.   

Does Department of Energy expect to grant funding opportunities for electricity security?

I think those are decisions that will be made as we move forward through not only some of the grand challenge work but other initiatives within the department. So, none that I can point to today, but we are always talking about different opportunities to engage the stakeholders and engage the industry and the private sector to move us forward, particularly in the security space.  

Very good. We have other questions coming up, but a lot of those will be addressed as our panelists speak. At this point, thank you for joining us. We appreciate your time today, along with all of our other speakers.

At this time, we are going to be handed over to Eric Shea from the Office of Electricity, and Eric is going to take us through the track. As a reminder, you can submit your questions as we go through and make sure to reference the topic. Eric, I will hand it over to you.

As the slides come up, I will reiterate and you have heard already that the Energy Storage Grand Challenge is a result of two premises. First, storage is important. And storage defined broadly, not just batteries and reservoirs but the portfolio technologies that achieve storage- like functions. And the second premise is we have room to improve in terms of coordinating across offices. The department has a range of world-class capabilities, and while our objectives may be aligned, our execution can sometimes be better aligned.

What will you see today is an outline for a strategic plan. Of how to use all of DOE’s capability. Our convening authority to data-driven insights to the ability to pursue long development horizons or address technology risks. And this plan will address how to arrange the capabilities logically to accelerate the technology industry. You will hear about the strategic plan from the five tracks. Technology development, manufacturing and supply chain, technology transition, policy and valuation, and workforce development. For anyone who needs a condensed version, whether you’re an innovative executive or impetuous millennial come here to long summaries. Innovate here, make here, and deploy everywhere.

I will go to the first track. Technology development. We want an R&D ecosystem for U.S. energy storage innovation. We need to proactively coordinate with both within and outside DOE. We will succeed when we see accelerated innovations resulting in greater performance at lower cost.

Here’s technology development and how it fits within the ESPC mission arrow. Technology development is focused on the innovation portion. Innovate here. Successful innovation depends on understanding deployment. So, we’ll get to a DOE-wide R&D framework. There are three groups of activities. The first is developing and maintaining a set of guideposts to help align the R&D across a wide variety of options. The second is assembling a diverse technology portfolio. The third is augmenting the pathways that accelerate new technologies. I will go into detail.

Our challenge is creating a unifying R&D framework for everything from sodium-based flow batteries, to concrete thermal storage, two railcars on the hillside.   How we are doing that is to start with what benefits the end-user, whether a town, home, business, or region. With functional requirements, any technology can make the case that R&D can help it achieve these goals.

Then we assemble a technology portfolio. Technology that  has the potential to make advance progress on cost and performance by 2030 and identify pathways, especially the DoE resources for the consortia, partnerships, and programs that will be utilized to accelerate these technologies.

I will talk about the use cases that we have assembled up to this point. How they hint at what could be possible by 2030 and how DOE can help foster a robust U.S. energy storage industry.

The first is facilitating an evolving grid. Drivers for this use could include aggressive decarbonization goals and transitioning from  a world with steady road growth everywhere to pinpoint investments. On the right, you see  there is literature already to what values for these uses might exist today. There are some estimates that positive that values for seasonal storage is 80 to 90% lower than storage prices now. Given how battery prices have fallen over of the last 10 years, a similar target might be appropriate for the next 10.

What of the use cases where hybrids could be used in serving remote communities? So, this is an island, coastal, or remote community. The applicability to a small coastal village or isolated mountain town might initially be limited in the U.S., but it does exist more commonly elsewhere in the world. U.S. growth could come with emerging goals like Oregon’s Two Weeks Ready program. They look to get a quarter million homes ready to survive for a few weeks without critical services. While electricity generation isn’t  exclusively part of that now, it could give the R&D community a long-term target.

One of the largest use cases by market potential is electrified mobility, which includes on-board storage and the related charging infrastructure. Any nontrivial electrification is going to be a major [indiscernible]. Level II charging today is around  10 kilowatts, but extreme fast charging is in the 300- to 400-kilowatt power range. One of unit performance requirements will be buffering a potential spike in demand from extreme fast charging.  

Interdependent network infrastructure. It includes other infrastructures on which the grid itself depends. With dispersed or unattended locations, these facilities already used technologies like fuel cells to provide eight hours a day to several days of backups. One of the things we’d like to investigate are their other technology pathways that eventually provide co-benefits. Critical services resilience includes  uses that are important for life or mission safety. Most common solutions today are associated incorporate [indiscernible]. Duration requirements for on-site fuels derived from the NFPA. Some examples include duration requirements from 24 hours to multiple days for hospitals and living facilities. The status quo isn’t necessarily ideal since they [indiscernible ] and issues can  cap the annual runtime to 100 hours. Some of the pathways to economically viable technologies that can provide equivalence of superior functionality without disadvantages.

Finally, the last use cases divided into two  parts. Flexibility for smaller end-users like residential and commercial and flexibility for large facilities that use or generate power. There are value propositions in market value today that increase comfort or demand charges. Part of the stakeholder process as well as with the policy and valuation track is to draw out what these values might look like in 2030.

To take a macro view, these fixed use cases are hopefully broadly representative of what storage can do by 2030, might represent six to $20 billion in annual [indiscernible] by 2030. Making some reasonable assumptions about business size and conversion ratios for R&D might be 50 or 60 companies or business units, each with a field demonstrated technology that it had some support behind it. These technologies would span the gamut from bidirectional, electrical, chemical, and thermal, and flexibility solutions.  Each of these technology pathways would traverse a progression from foundational science to wide bank ability. For the third group, this is what we mean by technology pathways. DOE has a wide number of facilities, consortia, and programs to move technologies from the foundational science to wide bankability on the y-axis. And from materials and components to integrated operational systems on the x-axis. As an example, this shows the electrochemical storage capabilities that the Office of Electricity supports.

Hypothetically, if you’re a postdoc with an idea for a new battery chemistry and your funding only allows you to build watch battery sized prototypes then the planned grid storage launch pad can help validate that the chemistry performance would work well for the intended use case, without needing to build a $1 million test. Let’s say those tests turn out well and you receive follow-up funding to transition to full-size power to cylindrical cells and you want to test to make sure they don’t vent, leak, or burn.

Then Sandia can help with the [indiscernible] or accelerated cycling at the battery used testing lab. After those tests turn out well, [indiscernible] verify the integrated power conversion systems will interact well in the grid. Finally, you’ve received start- up investments, and you’re ready to make the first sale. You need to validate your overall system will talk nicely to the utility data. That’s one of the envisioned roles for the energy storage research center. This example is meant to be one of dozens showing how DOE capabilities with industry can establish an ecosystem that accelerates storage technology development. Having a pipeline of innovation will in turn help achieve the ESGC goal of energy storage leadership.

To recap, to accomplish the mission of maximizing the pace of storage innovation, the technology track will pursue activities in three areas. Developing and maintaining use cases, assembling a diverse technology portfolio, and augmenting the development pathways. In summary, by strengthening the connections between all R&D stages and end-user benefits, the Energy Storage Grand Challenge aims to accelerate the entire storage innovation process. Now, for more details on the “Make Here” part, I will turn it to Diana Bauer.

I will talk about the manufacturing and supply chain aspects of the grand challenge. First, the purpose is to build a diverse and strong domestic manufacturing base with integrated supply chains to support our storage leadership.

We want to feed into the building of a robust manufacturing enterprise that drives down costs and also integrates and scales innovation. And finally, reliability sources, critical and material, components. To do this, we are pursuing these three areas and addressing technical barriers, to lower cost and improve performance, accelerating manufacturing scale-up, and enabling reliable sourcing of critical materials and components across supply chains.

So, as Eric stated, this track of the grand challenge is focused on “Make Here.” We want to accelerate the scale of reduced costs and ensure resilient supply chains. Also, I want to point out that actually, it is a lot more complicated, that was a bold figure, but as we think about scaling up, we kind of cycled back and forth between the more developed, the higher tier level technologies and the need for innovation at the lower tier level.

As we produce at a larger scale, we do need in some cases to return to the bench and come up with new innovation. In the manufacturing scene, we think about that back and forth between innovation and manufacturing. That is very important. Another conceptual issue is thinking about the supply chain so in order to have domestic manufacturing robust enough in manufacturing, we need to think across the supply chain from raw materials to refined materials, to manufacture components, to integrating the system, assembling storage systems, and then of course those go to the end-user. And then at the end, we would like to transition advance recycling. So, in terms of how we’re thinking about those R&D areas across the supply chain, manufacturing processes intensification, so that means substituting or simplifying the manufacturing process. So, in some cases you may have multiple processes that can then distill into a single process or a smaller number of processes.

Critical materials processing and separation. One of the opportunities for enhanced domestic leadership is advancing to the next innovations in critical materials processing and separation. So, for example, production of lithium using advanced chemistry in an environmentally sound way can help us solidify our supply chain for lithium ion batteries. And roll-to-roll manufacturing capabilities are important for producing membranes and other battery components.   

Membrane manufacturing. Also new materials for harsh service environments. That is particularly important for thermal storage systems. So, on the right you have a list of technologies aligned with the technologies that Eric covered earlier.

In gathering a foundation for the road map, we held a webinar in mid-March. And we had some breakout sessions to examine possible gaps and opportunities for us to pursue in the manufacturing side of this grand challenge. We have breakout sessions on electrochemical energy storage, flow batteries, chemical energy storage, thermal energy storage, and industries as storage. Industries as storage corresponds to one of the use cases that Eric described, flexible operations in the industry.

Across these breakout sessions, some crosscutting challenges were identified. Membranes, bipolar plates, hybrid systems, grid integration technologies—so getting from a storage technology to a system, including conversion technologies. And power electronics are very important there. Raw material availability—so that you know is lithium and cobalt—and [indiscernible] also came up. And then, finally translating the low TRL innovations to high TRL prototypes along the lines of what I discussed earlier. In terms of what we are thinking for the road map, as I mentioned, addressing technical barriers and manufacturing— two aspects, lowering manufacturing costs and reducing manufacturing barriers to improve performance.

So, you see, some of these items that I just mentioned under each of these. That in terms of the actions,  we are continually performing technology assessment studies to further sharpen our understanding of where the opportunities lie and where the barriers lie and where the opportunities lie. And then we are investing across multiple offices for improved performance and lower costs across the supply chain for manufacturing. Then, in accelerating manufacturing scale up, we are trying to accelerate  the transition from innovation to commercialization. And for a scale-up we are focusing on thermal storage, lithium-based batteries, and grid scale deployment.

The title of this slide should be critical materials supply chain resilience. In this case, we are particularly focused on fragmented supply chain for lithium and cobalt in batteries. And we are focusing on R&D on lithium processing and separations innovations. R&D on batteries with reduced cobalt requirements. And then also innovations in battery recycling.

I don’t think it has been mentioned yet in this webinar, but we plan—when we issued the draft of roadmap for comments, we will also be issuing a request for information, and so in this slide I have a preview of some of the types of questions we will be asking. So, ranging from “What are pressing challenges for scaling up various technologies?” “What are some barriers to lower costs?” And, “Are there some other policies that would help establish and maintain a manufacturing capacity within the U.S.?” And that is the end of my remarks. And now I will hand it over to Stephen Hendrickson to cover tech transitions.

Thank you, Diana. Hi everyone; my name is Stephen Hendrickson, and I am a program manager in the Office of Technology Transitions in the Department of Energy. Alongside my colleague Marcos Gonzales [indiscernible], we’ve been leading the tech transition track for the grand challenge. As assistant secretary Fitzsimmons said, R&D is necessary but not sufficient for the U.S. to lead in energy storage. What our track is focused on is how to strengthen the leadership in energy storage through the commercialization and deployment of energy storage innovations. That largely focuses on three areas—the financial dimension and how to get the necessary investments to develop and deploy energy storage technology, providing the marketplace and stakeholders with the necessary information to make informed decisions, and really understanding the nature and current and protected markets that those energy source technologies are going to compete in.

Our focus as a track is about an outwardly facing and thinking about how to engage with necessary partners in the private sector of the organization across the federal government complex to support the demonstration deployment of technologies. So, we would like to share with you today the   initial framing for what the challenges look like and how to address them and what we really want this to be, is the beginning of an ongoing dialogue and engagement with the range of focusing on the webinar today and others to understand how you see things playing out in the marketplace and how that can inform our strategy to be as robust and flexible as possible.

Returning to Eric’s framing of Innovate Here, Make Here, Deploy Here. A couple of points is if we think it is important to expand innovation pipeline early-stage, so we have as many technologies being developed as possible, so we have a diversified portfolio of options that can inform those use cases that were identified, so that includes both government R&D investments but also early-stage, private sector investments in those technologies to commercialize them. And I think when you look across Innovate Here, Make Here, deploy Here, there are relationships between where the innovations take place in the early-stage R&D with where the manufacturing takes place. As Diana highlighted, there’s a lot of innovation going on in the manufacturing component. And understanding how investments in both of those areas can complement one another to support U.S. leadership in manufacturing energy-source technologies. Similarly, where manufacturing will be located will be connected to where deployment is occurring. We try to understand both domestically and internationally where will be the demand for those resource technologies and what implications that has where investments will be in manufacturing.

A couple of high-level points to make is that we are looking to leverage the full suite of federal government tools and resources to enable U.S. to compete in markets around the world, and the buildout of companies that are producing that equipment and developing those projects for [indiscernible] will require significant private sector investment . The government can lead and develop the strategies, but we’re looking to the private sector.

When we think about what it means to commercialize the technologies,  I think it is helpful to return to the six use cases that Eric identified: a facilitating and evolving grid, serving remote communities, electrified mobility, interdependent network infrastructure, critical service resilience, and facility flexibility. The point there is that to really understand what it means to commercialize technology we need to think specifically about each of those use cases. Identify what are the markets you are talking about, and who are the actors involved in each one of those use cases, and what are their needs, and what are the tools and capabilities we have available to us to support that deployment. If you are thinking about facilitating involving grids, it may involve investment in utility and cooperative  utility commission. That’s a different set of stakeholders than if you think about electrified mobility which may be more about vehicle manufacturers or commercial and individual customers who are making investments into what kind of vehicle they will buy. So, we need to be very precise and nuanced in how we understand those different markets so that we can tailor the responses appropriately and maximize our chances for success.

With regard to innovate here, I think there are four stages or four layers of what the role of finance and investment in that space would be. The first is as I mentioned, investing in a range of early-stage technologies. We have as many options as possible. Then you reconcile that with the use cases that we laid out and the iterative process where you see the technology and what they’re capable of and then what the use case needs are and make sure the technology can meet those needs or as new technologies emerge, new use cases and options for how that can be deployed are fine. With that in mind, then you think, “Well, if the company competes in that space, what is the viable business models available to them so they can ensure predictable revenue streams to be sufficient to attract investment by investors that are looking to get a sufficient return?”  [ indiscernible] and then understanding the company’s viability and think about what is the broader market that the technology would be competing in.

As I mentioned, the commercialization and deployment will require significant private sector investment, and I think one point we want to make is there are different risks associated with the types of activity you’re completing with. So, for instance, if you are developing a [indiscernible]. You have risk associated with project development. If you have an energy storage grid solution, you have risks associated with building a physical asset in a given location on time, with the equipment arriving on time, the permit being available, all of those risks that pose financial challenges that can be addressed. A different type of activity that is necessary for us to succeed in this grand challenge is the manufacturing grants. If you are a company with an energy source technology that is looking to compete in that space, you have different risks associated with when you build the factory on time, is the product going to perform the way you expect is the market for that technology going to be there so that you’re generating sufficient revenue to be a viable business.

So, those are different than developing a specific project in the ground. Thirdly, the overall marketplace is another set of risks. Where will the markets for energy storage emerge both domestically and internationally, where are they today, where are they  headed, what are the sources of uncertainty associated with each of those markets. So, the point here is that  you need to have a nuanced approach that addresses different types of risks and complement one another to have an integrated strategy to address the various challenges.

Then finally, building on that, deploying everywhere. We need an integrated strategy that leverages the range of federal tools to enable U.S. firms to compete. As I laid out, varying use cases each will have its own technical and cost requirements. They need to be sensitive to what those are and need to be thinking in terms of domestic and international markets. And we think that having a multipronged approach to look at numerous markets, numerous use cases and seeing one of the options and what the possible tips that would be of a sufficient market to support U.S. leadership. We need to think about that now and then integrating over time to how these targets evolve and to be sensitive to the numerous decision-makers that are relevant to each one of those markets. The customers, investors, manufacturers, entrepreneurs.   

With that in mind, we’ve laid out ten different activities so far that we have been pursuing and some very specific. Connecting labs and experts to external partners and as Diana mentioned my colleague [indiscernible] is the leading request for information so that   [indiscernible] refine it and improve it. The department runs a lab partnering service at  labpartnering.org where you can search out with keywords subject-matter experts and intellectual property and user facilities that can be utilized to support energy storage commercialization and development. We also have mechanisms such as the technology commercialization fund where the department has set aside specific dollars that are intended to help commercialize technologies coming out of national labs which is highly relevant to the grand storage challenge. And we are pursuing projects to help the national laboratories to find  innovative ways to help pursue commercialization.

And at a higher level we are sort of broadly thinking about what are the real-world projects we can develop to demonstrate the technology and how can we collaborate with industry to make this happen and identify barriers and address them.

We had a lot of great initial conversations with our interagency partners from the USDA’s world utility service to Department of Commerce,  international trade administration, the export/import bank and others on ways that their mission is to support U.S. corporate leadership or economic leadership both domestically and internationally, and we can connect that with our technology innovation agenda to be mutually reinforcing those collaborative relationships. Then finally working with my colleagues here [indiscernible] at the Department of Energy on the market industry analysis that will provide both internal government and to the public high-quality information about the status and projections for where the market is headed to inform on decision-making and accelerate investment decisions.

With that I want to highlight here is my contact info, stephen.hendrickson@hq.doe.gov. I can connect you with others across DOE, and I hope this is the beginning of a conversation about how we can improve the strategy and identify opportunities to collaborate. And now I will pass it on to my colleague Alejandro Moreno to talk about policy and valuation.

Thank you, Stephen.  I am Alejandro Moreno, director of the Water Power Technologies Office in EERE along with  [indiscernible] we’ve been leading the policy evaluation track. As Alex said this morning, we recognize that in order for DOE to leverage all over our resources to really drive optimal use of energy storage and drive the industry forward, we need to do more than [indiscernible]. Recognizing that a lot of the decisions that will be made over the next 10 years to determine the course of energy storage and to determine whether or not it is developed and used in a way that provides the most value are going to be made by people that don’t necessarily have a role in the individual technology or even an individual project.

And  specifically, by bodies involved in policy, regulatory decisions, and planning decisions. We recognize that many of those decisions right now are not made with the full suite of necessary information or the level of granularity and sophistication in the modeling tools and analysis that are required to make the right decisions  don’t always exist. DOE’s role—and I will give this a caveat, it is not our role to recommend or set  specific policy, but it is our role to make sure that those who are developing policy and making decisions have the information and tools they need to make the decisions that are best for them.

Policy, of course, and regulation, touch everything. And there’s innovation and R&D policy and there’s manufacturing policy and industrial policy that drives many of the goals you have heard about already. The most obvious and largest weight of policy and regulatory options and where valuation comes into play is in the utilization and deployment. I would say that this is of course not just a unidirectional arrow; it’s really a circle. If you develop regulations and policies that encourage the optimal sizing, optimal capabilities of different technologies and different energy storage technologies then you’re also encouraging innovations in those capabilities that offer the greatest value. The decision-makers that largely we’re focused on are here in the top row. Are those that are most critical and most likely to make decisions to determine the course of the storage industry and diverse technologies.

Specifically, public utility commissions and states, ISOs and RTOs [indiscernible] and state legislatures, state energy offices, those setting large state mandates that can be encouraged and encourage, or in some cases, not encourage different technologies deployment and utilities, particularly in the planning section of utilities ensuring that the tools and regulations are right. 

If information is not fully accurate or not fully available, you see the bullets on the top there on what storage can do, particularly what different chemistries can do under different operational strategies under different conditions for example, and ultimately how do you end up paying for it. Then you effectively are operating with your hands tied behind your back. So, we hear that from a lot of utilities when you look at storage integration in  [indiscernible - low volume]. It’s very clear that they don’t have the tools to truly understand how different storage technologies would be used under different scenarios, and so you end up with a paradigm where on one hand utilities are often saying, “Well, we want to be as flexible as possible, so we will get a lot of storage or we’ll have a storage target internally or, on the other hand, we don’t have the sophistication we’re comfortable with, so I can’t even go there at all.  Those are the situations that we are ultimately trying to avoid.

Some of the key issues we are focused on, first is resilience. We all are very comfortable with the notion as Bruce said that storage potentially is a critical tool in improving the resilience of the grid. It can mean a lot of things to different people. To clarify, I am talking about both the prevention of and response to low probability, high impact events . What we do know—because resilience can mean different things to different people—is that there needs to be a little bit more rigor in being able to draw the line, specifically between a resilient system and the individual devices and the individual properties of individual devices that  comprise that system. Understanding how different characteristics play as part of a portfolio with each other, different [indiscernible - audio muffled].

For power system operations, certainly understanding the storage technology and capability embodied there, are not well-reflected and power flow systems, ability and dispatch tools. System planning, and same thing, probably even more so, recognizing that storage isn’t well represented in capacity expansion models. And also the relationship between the EERE, bulk power system And some of the different investments you have there and how the value train [indiscernible - low volume] And that needs a situation I mentioned before. And lastly, the transportation cross sector. It is important to recognize this is not just a great technology, energy storage is critical for some of the events we have seen with mobility and there is a really close link between storage mobility and storage for the grid. Both direct things like fast charging systems, but also in future planning, an understanding how stores can provide value, effectively cutting across and translated between the use cases that we talked about this morning between the transportation sector and the industrial sector and the grid.

What is DOE’s role? It is not to recommend and certainly not to set policy and not to recommend those policies, but it is to provide the decision-makers with the information and tools they need. We do some of this already. The genesis and the philosophy behind the policy and valuation track here is to embody that need for better coordination across the different offices that Eric talked about and really one of the drivers of the Energy Storage Grand Challenge. We know that in order to be effective, this type of support needs to be targeted and targeted at the issues that are most critical and the most likely to prevent the optimal use or [indiscernible - low volume] of storage. It needs to be systematic in the sense that it’s addressing each of the particular barriers that prevent or that stand in the way of the particular use case or a particular decision, we can’t just response to what’s easier when we have the capability to do. It needs to be coordinated across different offices, and make sure we are not, or we are leveraging the expertise we have but we’re also avoiding providing different types of information from the different offices to the same stakeholders.

And then of course, it needs to be informed and objective. It has to be the support that we provide directly to decision makers need to be informed by our analysis and it needs to be objective in the sense of not being technology neutral. As many people on the line know, DOE is structured by technology usually, so I do hydropower research; my colleagues do solar research, and if our technology or our support is seen as coming from the solar office or just the hydropower office, often it’s going to be interpreted or actually unintentionally biased and supportive of a certain technology rather than the overall [indiscernible - audio muffled]. So, you can imagine something like this. Where we have identified the key foundational needs and those include better data, field data validated data, better models, better usage data and then cutting-edge analysis that helps us understand the questions about how different storage technologies could be cited, located, used, and combined [indiscernible - low volume]. The values could be different by the characteristics of the power system and how we see it’s evolving. Those arrows that feed up should be bi-directional and we’ll talk about that in a second, and then the fact that these are individual categories here in no way implies those are monolithic groups; there’s very different priorities and needs within each of those groups and often a lot of synergy across multiple groups.

This is some of the work that we are already doing and continue to build up. Rest assured we are not starting from scratch. Many offices have different storage regulatory engagement and storage analysis. What we did find is that often working in OE and EERE and sometimes the work between offices and EERE didn’t always talk to each other and sometimes the regulatory support for the actual technical systems projects were not always informed about the analysis going on in the office. There is a lot of work to build on, but a lot of work that we’re going to do in the policy and valuation track is drawn with those linkages and helping to prioritize the issues across each of the individual stakeholder groups. Ultimately, you end up with something that looks like this, where y ou have a clear strategic impetus and strategic prioritization of issues in resilience in power system operations and energy planning, transportation, that are the most critical issues, and the overlap in the Venn diagram, and most critical issues for each of these stakeholders and those would be the DOE; the national labs really have the capability to be able to support . This support is delivered through a trusting, deep relationship between DOE teams and the individual decision-makers where we are able to provide the analysis and ensure that it is best targeted for decisions, not just reports sitting on shelves but just as important to listen to the priorities as they evolve. Because as the grid evolves, the one thing we know is that we do not know everything right now. We don’t even know all the questions that will be relevant in two years, in three years, in  five years. Ensuring that we continue to listen to each of the stakeholders and regulatory and policy decision-makers and understand what they need from us and continue to tailor and adapt our research and analysis to meet those needs. And help ensure that storage in the group of technologies are deployed, cited, and used to maximize their value so that value can ultimately be compensated and incentivized for development.

 So, I will turn it over to my colleague John Vetrano, who is going to tell about the workforce development track.

Thank you, Alejandro. I am John Vetrano. [indiscernible]. I’m with the Office of Energy Science, and my boss is Linda Portland[ and also the advanced manufacturing office with Kelly Lightner and Diana Bauer and Steve Schooner, are helping to work this.

In order for the Energy Storage Grand Challenge to proceed, we have to develop a strong and dedicated workforce as a key building block for its success. For this track, we will focus the program and build the pipeline personnel needed to meet the goals of the ESGC. Training everything from machining, mechanical engineering, and material science.

The three Innovate Here, Make Here, Deploy Everywhere, the workforce development, as you might imagine, spans all three of the components  of the ESGC. This requires a wide scope of the workforce development program. The department has a long-standing interest in developing a workforce that will meet the specialized needs of the energy sector. Therefore, there are wide range of existing programs and program modalities that either are or can be focused on energy storage. The Office of Basic Energy Sciences, for instance, supports over 2,000 graduate students each year as well as a large number of postdocs and undergraduates. Additionally, offices such as energy efficiency and renewable energy leverage a wide range of their consortia, laboratory projects, and universities to enact a variety of hands-on workforce development programs.

This is an illustration of the existing workforce initiatives within the department, some of which like the energy storage internship program are already focused on energy storage. Right now, we are seeking to assess these programs with respect to energy storage workforce needs. Then we will look for opportunities to focus or grow existing programs and initiate new ones.

For innovate here, we require strong base of scientists and engineers to develop new products and push them toward commercialization. DOE will support research and energy storage that will grow and strengthen this cadre of workers to help them develop the energy storage systems of the future. The build here will require engineers, welders, designers, and more. DOE will support programs to help develop the specialized skills these people will need to create and build energy storage products. To deploy everywhere, will require broad  expertise in citing and building installations, but also analyzing entire systems to optimize the use of energy storage for grid efficiency and resilience.

For activities, the workforce development track will consist of several activities to achieve these goals. First the seeking stakeholder input through the RFIs as Diana and Stephen mentioned, to better understand where the strengths and gaps in existing and potential future workforce. For these things we will want feedback from the people on this webinar and the people who attend the other ones as a response to the RFI. Then we will also assess the efficacy of the existing programs and seek to understand the balance of the needs that the skills development will require. DOE will also seek to make better connections across the offices to identify synergy and workforce development programs similar to what Alejandro said earlier. This is a quick summary of what I presented to you in the workforce development track of the Energy Storage Grand Challenge.

Thank you very much for listening to this presentation. And now I will hand it to Meredith, who will get us started with questions from the audience.

Thanks so much, John, and thanks to all of our panelists. Now we will open for questions. You are doing a great job of sending questions to us, and we have a whole pile that have come in. We are sorting through those right now. If you have additional questions, do reference the speaker or topic. The first question I will answer is are the slides going to be shared? Yes. We are going to post the recording of this entire webinar as well as the PDF of the slides. That will be up by the end of next week on the Energy Storage Grand Challenge website, and you can download it there. Let’s get started on the questions for the panelists. Alejandro, I will give you the honor of answering the first question. There are a lot of questions coming in regarding funding opportunities and grants. Can you address that?

You cut out at the very end, can you hear me? I heard the question. It was not a dodge of the question. Sorry. It is a very understandable and right question to ask. A lot of the work as we talked about that’s going on in the Energy Storage Grand Challenge is being undertaken in various offices, so the funding decisions are made at the office level. As you saw in a lot of the policy evaluation work, a lot of this is going on already, and the work of the challenge is to help us better coordinate it. That said, of course the fact that we—and you’ve seen the level of priority from us and from everybody who spoke here today, means there is a strong focus on all of the topics and on technologies that can deliver storage.

Each of the pillars that we had here today, the actions we talked about. So, certainly we are looking for ways to drive investment there and for topics that we can fund. Ultimately the budgets are decided by Congress. We have a new fiscal year coming up at the beginning of October, so we will see what the ultimate funding level for each of these is then.

Alejandro, one more for you here. Will the DOE be coordinating closely with states, some of which have set a  [indiscernible - audio muffled ] such as Virginia and California.  

This is very much a question for me. That is smack in the stakeholder group of state legislatures and utility offices that we talked about, so we are there to offer support. We are not going to coordinate in the sense of saying you should or should not adopt a particular policy decision   Certainly, if a state came to us, if Virginia wanted to understand the impact of the storage mandate or retrospectively or another state wanted to look at best practices, that’s exactly the type of thing we use our analytical capabilities to help answer and also our convening power to bring states together so they can more directly learn from each other.

 Stephen, this is for you. How  are you applying the engineering community in advanced energy storage? We might not be university researchers, but we know how to build systems from pilot plants to large-scale plants.

Internally, we have discussed the engineering consulting community as an important set of stakeholders that have a lot of expertise. That is something to come, and I would actually say if whoever asked, if it feels comfortable to reach out to me directly, and I would love to have a following conversation how we could best leverage that expertise and even [indiscernible]. It just shows that bring as many perspectives as possible, so I appreciate that point.

Diana, what funding for private-sector supply-chain development is available, with regard to smaller or innovative critical [indiscernible] data mining processing companies, which compete with vertically integrated and subsidized competitors.

Yeah, thank you for the question. We are interested in supporting a scale-up of innovations for separations and processing, early-stage separation and processing and e xpect to have some opportunities coming in the next several weeks and months for that.

Very good. Stephen, one barrier to commercialization for small firms is performance guarantees and warranties. Initial adoption of new technologies by private sector depended on utilities being willing to take the risks that the technology will form as promised. Let alone long-term validation of program that produces a “good housekeeping seal of approval” like reports similar to an independent engineer’s report that with [indiscernible ] in the grand challenge. I think that’s an interesting idea, and I would say at this point we are collecting ideas and thinking through, kind of going back to what are the current risks, and what does that mean in terms of whether projects are getting developed or getting the funding they need? And what would be the impact of that [indiscernible - low volume ] I think that’s definitely something that we can look into.  

John, to what extent could the workforce development pillar support the technology that uses incumbent or existing workforces with no need to retrain or relocate?

Thank you for the question. I would hope that if those people exist, then we would support that technology. We are not focused on supporting a given technology but making sure there’s a good sort of pool of resources in terms of personnel to be able to either step into a project or program, or have things that allow people to come up to speed quickly. So, we are not specifically technology development, so I think that should work [indiscernible - low volume].

 Eric, this question is for you. What energy storage metrics are currently being pursued by DOE? Are LCAT, LVAT   being considered?

That is a great question. As you could see in my slides on the use cases, the metrics being used today on energy storage are all over the place. There’s the levelized cost of energy that is more commonly applied to wind and solar resources, measuring the dollars per megawatt hour of output. There’s dollars per kilowatt hour in [indiscernible] for storage energy capacity costs, and even there I’m struggling to be precise about what I mean when I say those words. And I think there’s really room to have a set of improved metrics that take into account the sort of lifecycle cost or cost-effectiveness and energy storage resource being used for specific applications. One of the places I would point to that most closely aligns with where we see these metrics would need to go is in the RPE day solicitation from a few years back, and they have a levelized  cost of storage metrics, and it [indiscernible - low volume] operational costs, and I think that kind of full cycle accounting or full lifecycle accounting or as close to it as you can get is really going to help us be able to create clear R&D cost and performance targets across the variety of technologies.

Eric, I will give this one to you. It’s great to hear that there are multiple ways to meet our energy storage needs.   What are the thoughts of maximizing needs of national gap storage to meet power generation,  , heating, and industrial energy storage needs?  

Again, I think this is why it is useful for us to consider the use cases. We are looking for storage technologies that have the ability to be very flexible and be able to provide specific grid functions depending on the use cases. But in addition to the electrical engineering operational considerations, there are also more practical considerations. As an example, for the remote communities  use case deliverability and shipping of this system and field deliverability is a major consideration. We are fully aware that not all technologies will be a good fit for every use case. That’s why we wanted to have the use case represent a broad  perspective of potential uses. The short answer is we are not limiting technology up front; we are trying to create a framework where any technology that has the capability are potential capability to fulfill all the functional requirements that can be incorporated in this initiative.

Stephen, this is for you.  Will there be an opportunity in the Energy Storage Grand Challenge for small startups with creative, new approach and ideas to partner with lab staff for analytical support?

My answer would be twofold. I think one, I highlighted that there are existing programs that [indiscernible] technology innovation fund [indiscernible] 0.9% of every program funded is already earmarked to be funding lab activities to commercialize technology [indiscernible - low volume] and representing external companies and would be something I recommend looking into. In addition, we are definitely exploring other options to further support that engagement between startups and the labs. And the local support I think emphasizes that [indiscernible - low volume].

Diana, innovation in battery manufacturing requires retool and integration’s extremely expensive capital equipment. How can you access the supportive, but limited [indiscernible ]? Will there be proposals to fund manufacturing innovations and energy?

Diana, you are still on mute.

There we go. We in the manufacturing office are working with the vehicle technology office on accessing the test facilities at the national laboratories to potentially provide opportunities for businesses to work with them. To identify—or I mean—to scale up their new innovative manufacturing processes. Eric, related to your slide on slide 24—the pathway example, how does the plan to work with industry where battery testing capabilities that already exist in the commercial[indiscernible].

Great question. One of the processes we went through in initially scoping out the grid storage launch pad was to do an extensive review of existing capabilities, both within DOE and industry. I would like to commend the team at [indiscernible] who conducted the research, and thanks to the battery facility who allowed the teams to go in an interview and in some cases visit. One of the things that we found was there is a distinction between testing for certification purposes. You’ve  met some industrywide standard for performance or durability or flame resistance, for example. There’s that kind of testing versus testing for R&D validation. So, I’ve got a new chemistry, but I want to see if it works.

They are distinct  objectives, even though some of the underlying equipment might be shared. So, I think one of the things we want to continue and probably improve on as we go forward, is to have structures where we can have an ongoing conversation between our DOE facilities and capabilities and industry to say, what is this that is most appropriate for DOE to help support in terms of buying down the fixed cost and validation capabilities versus what it is that the private sector would take on itself. And this is a much longer conversation. It is probably going to have an answer that will evolve as the industry involves. Yes, great question. I think the answer is it’s going to be an ongoing process.

Stephen, can you address the timeline for the RFI that was mentioned today?

I don’t have a specific date, but we will post that both on the Federal Register as well as on the Energy Storage Grand Challenge website on the Department of Energy website. The plan is to release it, I think, sometime later this month. And as Diana mentioned, that will be released alongside the draft roadmap we’ve been developing. I encourage everyone to read both of those and provide input via the RFI.

Eric, how do you alleviate, educate, or educate the utilities regarding fire hazard risks of lithium ion  and [ Indiscernible ] battery packs?

Thanks. I would say within the question, it’s not just utilities, but a whole bunch of other stakeholders like local zoning boards, or individual end-users need to be educated about the specific risks for all energy storage technologies. I think we are pursuing the sort of safety testing capabilities as well as supporting efforts to develop best practices or industry standards for flammability risk or recovery from thermal runaway events. In some cases, DOE supports ex-post forensic analysis for certain events. So, I think one of the best roles for DOE is to provide data-driven insights and analysis. And to support efforts and to give that to the industry to help them develop the standards and best practices to make sure all energy storage systems are safe for use.

Alejandro, it is a good idea to pursue a diverse set of technologies but when just a few proved to be  “the best,” how will DOE narrow it down a set of technologies to support, and how will DOE decide when to reduce [ indiscernible - low volume] non-promising technology?

I would say that’s probably a question for Eric, but I’m happy to take a first stab and hand it over to him. That is the philosophy behind use cases. Then determining which six use cases, what are the individual use cases to meet them. That creates a framework, a technology neutral framework to evaluate both the performance of different configurations and different technologies in providing the different technical characteristics or attributes needed for those use cases. Then also the analytical work that’ll happen in policy evaluation and understanding, under what situation or which capabilities will be most valuable. By combining the framework that Eric put together and the data and analytical tools that are forthcoming through policy and valuation, we create a framework for—we can do that. And it certainly isn’t the intention not to continue funding every technology in perpetuity regardless of how well it performs. Eric, I will hand it over to you.

I think that’s well said. Conceptually, the framework follows the R&D pathway that I’m sure all of those on the line are familiar with. We understand for any technology, at the outset, there is some high-risk, basic research that needs to be done. That’s when the uncertainty is the greatest and when the federal share of support for that kind of work is the greatest. As we get further down the technology maturity line, you have more certainty on how well the pathway is going to progress or like what is the range of the likely outcome as you do more testing and more research. So, I think what we are trying to set up is to match the technology potential so that when we have more certainty, with the end use as soon as possible. That will help us prioritize and identify the most promising technology.

Stephen, this next question is for you. The pipeline development you’re talking about applies to most hardware technology development. What programming and capabilities can DOE stand up to support small businesses, commercializing technology and extending the runway to the point that they’re ready for private investment?

I would say the need to support small businesses that are trying to commercialize technology is important and I would say I would flip it around and say what we are seeking now is we are discussing this a lot internally, what we would love to hear is people in the sector, whether small business investor, technology, or whoever, has a lot to [indiscernible - low volume]. What are you seeing, and what do you think would be most useful, and that helps inform our strategy. It may lead to something down the road. That’s what we are looking for, that input from people who are seeing this firsthand.

Last question for today, Eric. What is the role of companies like utilities, and what is the role for companies who were not storage device developers themselves or partner to deploy [indiscernible] from the grid are combined with the [indiscernible - low volume]?

I think this question has three answers. Or three facets to the answer. I will ask Stephen and Alejandro to jump in after me with their perspectives. From the technology development perspective, utilities are going to be the partners or hosts for many of these use cases. We would like to get a better understanding of what your needs are and how exactly would you use these technologies and what kind of performance do you need from a range of technologies before they would be superior to what you have on your system already. From technology development, getting an idea of what you need is the most helpful. So, definitely participating in our process, and I know this is ongoing and will help us develop that roadmap. For actual commercialization and valuation considerations I will hand it to my colleagues.

Can you repeat the question?

What is the role of companies like utilities in this effort? What is the role for companies who are not storage devices developers themselves to participate?

The role for utilities is huge, and what Eric said, and ultimately, in many cases utilities are either going to be procuring or developing projects themselves. So, being able, again, from what we have heard, really consistently from utilities is the need to have planning tools that capture in a much greater level of granularity, the value they will derive from storage writ large. But really the individual projects, that is critical and they don’t have that.

As result as I said before, they are not actually able to have a level of comfort in the planning and incorporate storage in a way [indiscernible ]. So, we want to work actively with utilities. Some of the storage technical assistance and analytical work that is already going on, we are looking at ways of expending that directly to utilities. And certainly as from a policy and valuation perspective, if utilities come, if anybody is out there from a utility and able to respond to the RFI, and some of the needs that you have, confirming or not the hypothesis we have and also the delivery mechanism that is most effective, I think that would go a long way in helping us target this accurately. Also, a big role in demonstration projects may be worth turning over to Stephen.

I would add to that, back to my point about talking about the number of different markets. When you think about grid applications, I agree it’s about what utilities need to get the project approved and [indiscernible - low volume]. If you’re thinking about transportation, then it gets to what is the original equipment manufacturer need to be confident in using a given technology in their vehicle, or what does the customer need to secure and [indiscernible - low volume] internal combustion engine or electric vehicle, you are making decisions based on different sides of criteria and information than a corporate regulated utilities or something like that. Really, what will help us is to get a sense from the various, from those various entities that are deciding whether or not to choose the energy storage option versus an alternative. What are the factors that ultimately will make that decision for them and say, what needs to happen to shift this slightly so the energy storage option makes more sense than the alternative. Then, what of the tools available from the department's perspective and whether its analytics or financial mechanisms, what are the pieces that would be useful to ship that calculus slightly?

Very good. Thank you all so much for submitting these questions. We have a lot more to get to but we are nearing the end of our presentation today.

Before we go to the final remarks from Michael Pesin from the Office of Electricity, I do want to give a quick advertisement for the rest of our workshops that will be held throughout the month. I’ve got a slide at the end to share the link. You’ll all receive an email after the webinar with a direct link to register for the remaining four workshops. Our next one is going to be on use cases and then we will have three regionally focused workshops . One for the Pacific Northwest and one for the South/Southwest and one for the Midwest and Northeast. Right now, again, thank you all very much for being here today. I will turn it over to Michael Pesin, deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Electricity, for the closing remarks.

Thank you, Meredith. I want to share some final thoughts today before we close. I want to thank everyone for joining us today and also want you to join me in thanking all the presenters. They did a great job, and thank you for the grand challenge. We have over 500 people joining today’s workshop, and those were great questions. For me, it shows there is good testimony for the importance of this project on energy storage topics. I really hope that we managed to communicate the DOE is very serious about doing everything in our power to ensure that the United States has leadership in the energy storage space. As you look at the entire cycle, we want to innovate here, enable innovation and we want to make it here and we want to be able to deploy our products everywhere in the world. This requires a lot of effort from everybody. Each of the tracks mentioned today, they become significant challenges. Those challenges require a diverse range of perspectives that will help us to form a holistic view in regards to energy storage. The formation of the [indiscernible] strategy that intersects in complex areas such as maintaining the reliable pure electricity delivery systems and supporting electric [indiscernible - low volume] or integration of the new model electrification that the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is leading.

All this requires knowledge from both sides inside and outside the DoE. The DOE have tremendous [indiscernible - low volume]. We have a national laboratory system, which is the most advanced [indiscernible]. Even with all these resources we cannot do it without your engagement and your support. We need you working with us to help us succeed. We need to succeed is to make sure the United States becomes the world leader in the energy storage space.

As part of our continued efforts, to receive input from stakeholders, we will have a series of regional workshops to be held. We will discuss use cases and you can help guide us in the overall strategy. The request for information will be released and we will have several specific requests for information for each track to help us collect public input. Also, we will publish the Energy Storage Grand Challenge roadmap which will be available to the public to provide feedback. Again, I want to thank everyone for your participation, and we look forward to more engagement with you in the future. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Michael. Ladies and gentlemen, his concludes today’s workshop. Thank you so much for your participation and your questions. We look forward to seeing you later this month. The links are on your screen for the upcoming webinars. Have a wonderful day.