U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
DOE Seeks Input on Energy Storage Manufacturing Challenges

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) today announced a Request for Information (RFI) to discover energy storage technology design challenges early on in the manufacturing process. By seeking input from academia, industry, research labs, government agencies and other stakeholders, OE will better understand the design decisions that impact energy storage technology production. 

Information gathered through this RFI will help identify solutions that will ultimately lead to national industrial-scale storage manufacturing that provides reliable, resilient, secure, and affordable electricity. The goal is to expand energy storage deployment for beneficial use cases like resilient power supplies and renewable energy integration.  

Maintaining a robust electricity grid is critical as the nation experiences rapid transformation in electricity generation and consumption due to resource diversity, demand, and increasing threats to infrastructure security and reliability. Numerous energy storage technology varieties hold promise for stationary applications but face significant cost, supply chain, and deployment barriers. OE's Energy Storage program seeks to reduce those barriers and accelerate energy storage technology development for a future-ready grid. This acceleration could be achieved by identifying safe, low-cost, and earth-abundant elements that enable cost-effective stationary storage.  

"Manufacturing domestic energy storage technologies on an industrial scale is foundational to increasing the affordability and widespread use of these technologies," said Gene Rodrigues, Assistant Secretary for Electricity. "Responses to this RFI will help shape our understanding of manufacturability challenges and inform how we prioritize solutions so that developers can unlock the full potential of their technology to benefit the American people."  

OE is interested in gathering information on the challenges that domestic energy storage technology developers face at the pre-production manufacturing stage. Specifically, OE wants to better understand what factors lead to decisions that impact scaling the technology for production.  

This RFI is not a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) and DOE is not accepting funding applications at this time.

Submit responses to this RFI (DE-FOA-0003378) to RFI3378@NETL.DOE.GOV by 8 p.m., (ET) on June 10, 2024. 

See more about OE's work on energy storage here. Learn more about OE.