“The US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is conducting research on alternative options to reduce costs and make large-scale energy storage safer and more practical.” Green Car Congress reports on research into “appropriate anodes, cathodes, and electrolytes for magnesium (Mg)-, sodium (Na)-, and lithium (Li)-based batteries and novel transition metal oxide- and nitride-based supercapacitor electrode materials.”

Grid Energy Storage

The goal is to develop energy storage systems with high-energy density to meet the ever-demand for the electric grid to provide reliable, distributed power. To accomplish this, NETL is simultaneously investigating various potential ways to make high-energy density energy storage less expensive. Research is underway to make magnesium batteries practical; create new cathode materials that should make sodium batteries work better; create new anode materials to improve the performance of lithium batteries; and to use transition metal non-oxide and oxide superstructures in electric double layer capacitors to provide back-up pulse power for long-term energy storage devices, such as batteries and fuel cells.