The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) develops transformational concepts and technologies for portable electricity storage for transportation and stationary electric storage for the electricity grid. Electrified transportation replaces foreign oil with domestic electricity, and utility-scale electric storage enables the widespread penetration of variable wind and solar generation. JCESR looks beyond Li-ion technology to new energy storage materials and phenomena to achieve a factor of five increase in performance and reduction in cost needed to realize transformational societal outcomes.

JCESR will leave three legacies: a library of fundamental scientific knowledge of materials and phenomena for next-generation batteries, demonstration of transformational battery prototypes suitable for scale up to manufacturing for transportation and the grid, and a new end-to-end integrated operational paradigm for battery research and development spanning discovery research, design, and demonstration.