Department of Energy: Range Grant for Next Generation Energy-Storage

The mission of ARPA-E is to identify and fund research to
translate science into breakthrough energy technologies that are too risky for the private sector and that, if
successfully developed, will create the foundation for
entirely new industries. Successful projects will address
at least one of ARPA-E?s two Mission Areas:

1. Enhance the economic and energy security of the
United States through the development of energy technologies that result in:
a. reductions of imports of energy from foreign
sources;
b. reductions of energy-related emissions, including
greenhouse gases; and
c. improvement in the energy efficiency of all economic sectors; and
2. Ensure that the United States maintains a
technological lead in developing and deploying advanced
energy technologies.

This program seeks to fund the development of transformational electrochemical energy storage technologies that will accelerate widespread electric vehicle adoption by dramatically improving their driving range, cost, and reliability. To achieve this long-term objective, this program aims to maximize specific energy and minimize cost of energy storage systems at the vehicle level. Central to this system-level approach is the use of robust design principles for energy storage systems. Robust design is defined as electrochemical energy storage chemistries and/or architectures (i.e. physical designs) that avoid thermal runaway and are immune to catastrophic failure regardless of manufacturing quality or abuse conditions. In addition, this program seeks multifunctional energy storage designs that use these robust storage systems to simultaneously serve other functions on a vehicle (for example, in the frame, body, and/or crumple zone), thus further reducing an energy storage syst
em?s effective weight when normalized to the entire electric vehicle weight. It is anticipated that the core technologies developed under this program will advance all categories of electrified vehicles (hybrid, plug-in hybrid, extended-range electric, and all-electric vehicles); however, the primary focus of this program is on all-electric vehicles, referred to hereafter as electric vehicles (EVs).

Reply to Reviewer Comments are provided as appendices to the FOA. Fillable versions of these templates are available at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov. Required forms for Full Applications are also available at https://arpa-e-
foa.energy.gov.