News

Record Amounts of Zero-carbon Electricity Generation and Storage now Seeking Grid Interconnection Berkeley Lab-led study shows over 1,300 gigawatts of solar, storage, and wind in interconnection queues – an indicator of a major energy transition underway, even if most proposed projects will not be built The amount of new power generation and energy storage projects in so-called... Read more

The third and final installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Sixth Assessment Report calls for aggressive and comprehensive actions if we are to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century. It finds we still need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically, beyond what governments have pledged, and that this emissions gap is exacerbated by implementation gaps... Read more

Improving a school's energy performance can affect more than utility bills — it can also boost indoor air quality and learning outcomes, making the classrooms healthier for students and staff. A new campaign, Efficient and Healthy Schools, will provide practical guidance on ventilation upgrades that can increase energy efficiency, lower costs, and improve the air at K-12 schools nationwide.... Read more

Researchers at Berkeley Lab are working with five other Department of Energy national labs to develop a roadmap for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to meet its 100% renewable energy mandate. A new Memorandum of Understanding, signed earlier this month between the Commonwealth and the federal government, kickstarts this “PR100 Study,” a two-year project funded by FEMA to conduct a comprehensive... Read more

A recent episode of A Day in the Half Life, a podcast produced by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), focuses on energy storage: What is it, why do we need it, and what are the latest advances? Host Aliyah Kovner talks with Noël Bakhtian, director of Berkeley Lab's Energy Storage Center, and Mike Gerhardt, research scientist at SINTEF, a research organization based in Norway.... Read more

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will join fellow industry leaders in a coalition to bring to market new technologies and products to address the converging crises of housing, economic inequity, supply chain volatility, and climate change in California and the U.S. In particular, the team will be working with the construction... Read more

Every year, 50% of the energy produced worldwide from coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and renewable energy sources is lost as heat. This untapped resource could be a promising additional source of useful energy, and for decades, scientists have worked to develop efficient systems to convert waste heat to electric power. In a recent study published in Joule, Berkeley Lab researchers developed a... Read more

Dramatic cost reductions over the last decade in battery storage and wind and solar energy position India to leapfrog to a more sustainable system for delivering affordable and reliable power to serve near a doubling in electricity demand by 2030, according to a new study by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). India, with a... Read more

Trains have been on the sidelines of electrification efforts for a long time in the U.S. because they account for only 2% of transportation sector emissions, but diesel freight trains emit 35 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually and produce air pollution that leads to $6.5 billion in health costs, resulting in an estimated 1,000 premature deaths each year. What’s more, these deaths and... Read more

Could a tank of ice or hot water be a battery? Yes! If a battery is a device for storing energy, then storing hot or cold water to power a building’s heating or air-conditioning system is a different type of energy storage. Known as thermal energy storage, the technology has been around for a long time but has often been overlooked. Now scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory... Read more

Berkeley Lab has been awarded more than $13 million for five research projects that will accelerate the development of advanced lithium batteries and smart, connected vehicles, making it easier to switch to electric vehicles. The awards were announced by the Department of Energy and are part of a total of $209 million in battery research projects selected by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office.... Read more

A team led by Wei Tong of the Applied Energy Materials Group in the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Division is one of three Berkeley Lab winners of an R&D 100 Award for 2021. The team developed a unique layered-rocksalt intergrown cathode material for a new generation of lithium-ion batteries that offers higher capacity, faster charging time, superior cycling, thermal stability, and... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) is a free, award-winning online tool developed by Berkeley Lab with support from DOE’s Building Technologies Office (BTO) that increases the speed and scale of energy retrofit identification in commercial buildings. The virtual tool enabled one California state agency to avoid audit costs of $3.3... Read more

Exponential energy storage deployment is both expected and needed in the coming decades. To that end, the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is hosting a summit on March 8 and 9, 2022, to discuss harnessing science, technology, and policy to accelerate energy storage solutions for our nation. The virtual public summit will convene and connect national... Read more

Earlier this summer, Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm launched the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Energy Earthshots Initiative, and the first Energy Earthshot is the “Hydrogen Shot,” with the goal of accelerating development and deployment of clean hydrogen across sectors. DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) plays a leading role in the research and... Read more

Having good room ventilation to dilute and disperse indoor air pollutants has long been recognized, and with the COVID-19 pandemic its importance has become all the more heightened. But new experiments by indoor air researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) show that certain circumstances will result in poor mixing of room air, meaning airborne contaminants may not be... Read more

Science innovators are invited to apply for the two-year fellowship program hosted at Cyclotron Road, an opportunity to advance hard technologies that have the potential for broad societal impact from concept to viable first product. Cyclotron Road is a division of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The fellowship program is run in partnership with... Read more

Wind energy continues to see strong growth, solid performance, and low prices in the U.S., according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). With levelized costs of just over $30 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for newly built projects, the cost of wind is well below its grid-system, health, and climate benefits.... Read more

All seventeen U.S. national laboratories and many prominent publishers, journals, and other organizations in scientific publishing announced today the beginning of a partnership to support name change requests from researchers on past published papers. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is coordinating the effort. This agreement will allow researchers who wish to change their... Read more

Companies like Purple Air and IQAir, with air pollution sensors that cost under $300, have brought air quality monitoring to the masses. But when Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientist Tom Kirchstetter looked at Purple Air’s map last year during wildfire season, he noticed a big hole in Richmond, a city of 110,000 to the north of Berkeley. “You can see what appears to... Read more

Key findings from the 2020 China Energy Outlook report — which outlines a path for continuous improvement of energy efficiency and emissions through 2050 in China — were recently highlighted by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). ACEEE Executive Director Steven Nadel summarized the analysis of China’s current energy policies and trends. While China has taken steps... Read more

The Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER), a technology that identifies cost-saving energy reductions in building portfolios, continues to win accolades and support from researchers and investors alike. Already the winner of multiple awards, including an R&D 100, recognizing it as one of 2020’s most innovative and disruptive technologies, BETTER recently became a... Read more

In our future electrified world, the demand for battery storage is projected to be enormous, reaching to upwards of 2 to 10 terawatt-hours (TWh) of annual battery production by 2030, from less than 0.5 TWh today. However, concerns are growing as to whether key raw materials will be adequate to meet this future demand. The lithium-ion battery – the dominant technology for the foreseeable future... Read more

A multidisciplinary Berkeley Lab team has been working for several years to develop a game-changing plastic that, unlike traditional plastics, can be recycled indefinitely and is not made from petroleum. Their latest milestone was the release of an analysis showing the feasibility and potential outcomes of launching the unique material, called poly(diketoenamine) or PDK, into the market at an... Read more

This month 11 scientists and engineers (pictured) will join the prestigious two-year fellowship program at Cyclotron Road based at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley. Selected from a record pool of 300 applicants, the 11 individuals will make up Cohort 2021 of Cyclotron Road. As part of their two-year fellowship they will work to bring... Read more