Batteries and Energy Storage Energy Innovation Hub FOA Webinar
good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's webinar my name is Michael cook and I'm a senior technical advisor in the department of Energy's office of science I'm joined today by colleagues from the office of science to discuss the funding opportunity announcement energy Innovation Hub program research to enable Next Generation batteries and energy storage as folks continue to join us online I'll run through the logistics for today's meeting this meeting is being recorded closed captioning is available through the zoom meeting client we'll begin with a presentation but have reserved some time for questions as part of today's event please drop your questions in the Q a box so we can write a response or answer them live Michael zarkin director of The Office of Grants and contract support is joining us to help answer questions during the session with that I'd like to introduce Dr Andy Schwartz from Basic Energy Sciences to discuss this funding opportunity Dr Schwartz I'll hand it over to you for today's presentation great thank you very much Michael I appreciate that introduction and thanks to all of you who have joined today to listen in uh good afternoon I also will briefly introduce a few of my other colleagues who are here with me Craig Henderson and John vetrano from the office of Basic Energy Sciences as well as Michael Hill a Contracting officer in the doe Contracting Office overseeing this funding opportunity announcement so we are here today as as Michael introduced to talk to you about a recently issued funding opportunity announcement for the doe energy Innovation Hub program focused on Next Generation batteries and energy storage uh the funding opportunity number is shown here this funding opportunity announcement or foa was issued a few weeks ago January 26 2023. um there are a couple key deadlines here which I will remind you of a few times throughout this talk uh the first key one is the submission for pre-applications a requirement of the funding opportunity announcement those are due no later than March 9th at 5 PM eastern time we will then evaluate those pre-applications and responses will be sent to the applicants no later than April 3rd 2023 and for those applicants who are encouraged to submit an application the submission deadline for the applications will be May 18 2023 at before midnight 11 59 PM eastern time and I'll go through some of the details of the submission process for both pre-applicate stations and applications later in this in the in this webinar I will say the disclaimer at the bottom the presentation here is intended to adhere to and summarize the contents of the funding opportunity announcement but is not intended to add to take away from or contradict any of the requirements and in the end what is written in the funding opportunity announcement uh is the uh is the controlling uh language and I encourage you to read in detail the funding opportunity announcement as Michael said excuse me we're happy to take questions um during this during my presentation uh we should take I think approximately 20 minutes and then we'll have plenty of time for a dialogue and additional questions uh throughout the hour foreign so some key elements for this funding opportunity announcement so-called batteries and energy storage Hub foa this foa is still listening new applications only so we are looking for new that's to start new new activities and new Awards in this area uh applicants a number of different institutions are eligible all types of domestic entities including universities and colleges academic institutions non-profit organizations for-profit organizations for-profit Industries and doe National Laboratories other federal agencies other than doe and and or their ffrds federally funded research and development centers May participate but only as partners not as the lead Institution we expect that all applications will involve multi-disciplinary research teams these are large multi-investigator Awards across multiple disciplines multi-institutional applications are allowed uh and to some extent we expect to see multi-institutional applications but the application should be a single application submitted on behalf of the lead institution and that applies to the pre-application as well uh the team the team should have a single pre-application submitted by the lead Institution the foe also encourages applications that are led by or in partnership with minority serving institutions broadly including historically backed black colleges and universities that are underrepresented in the Basic Energy Sciences or Bes portfolio and also applications including individuals from groups that are historically underrepresented in stem and there's links in the foa and here to more information about the qualifications particularly for the minority serving institutions so the scope of the foa is summarized here and the details are in section one of the foa I refer you to section one for for more detailed descriptions uh energy Innovation Hub scale projects are intended to provide the scientific foundations for new energy storage technologies that are critical to the doe Mission uh particularly the mission to provide clean energy sources for the both the grid electrical grid and transportation from intermittent and stationary renewable sources such as wind solar Etc prioritization will be given to basic scientific research leading to scalable energy storage technologies that could significantly impact decarbonization of the economy and return and or enable the transformation of the electrical grid to these clean renewable energy sources and I'll Focus here and emphasize the basic scientific research aspects this is fundamental science the office of science within Department of energy and Basic Energy Sciences through which this these Awards will be made is it is focused on basic science so really the emphasis here is on basic science to seed and accelerate new Next Generation Technologies beyond the today's generation of batteries which are dominated by lead acid and lithium-ion Technologies again basic science you see us repeat this phrase over and over and I want to make sure that everyone is aware so while the the long-term vision is on impacting energy storage technology battery technologies the emphasis on the proposal proposed research is on the fundamental science foundations um now the next bullet's important we also say that basic science is expected to be relevant to Next Generation technology offices being supported at higher technology development Levels by Doe so this is to say that while the fundamental science uh is at the low technology Readiness level or TRL maybe even not on the TRL scale because we're not talking about technology that doesn't mean that the science can't be impacting higher technology development levels that are actively engaged in by other offices in doe so for example one could have a work at a higher TRL level where the barrier to moving it forward toward commercialization is a fundamental Science question if those fundamental science questions can be identified and addressed those basic fundamental science questions could be relevant to these uh these proposals for this Hub follow-up the research that you propose in response to this foa must align with the so-called priority research directions that were identified in this recent Workshop report workshop for Next Generation electrome chemical energy storage which was uh published in 2017. um the link this is a this is a link and we will put some of these links into the chat as I talk my colleagues will so that you can have them directly these slides as well as this recorded presentation will be posted uh in the near future onto the website where the foa is posted and I'll give you a link to that toward the end of the talk it's also important that the uh that the proposed research is consistent with the future technology needs for electrochemical energy storage is defined in the doe energy storage Grand Challenge again linked here and you can find more information about that Grand Challenge on the doe website so as stated before the the majority of the research activities proposed should address the priority research directions um identified in this basic research needs Workshop report up to three primary prds that are most significantly addressed by the research should be clearly listed on the cover page of the pre-application and the proposal narrative as specified in the foa we require that you identify at least one of the prds from the report and if you don't do so if you don't identify any prds the pre-application or application may be declined without review but also states that application applications must build upon and go beyond the accomplishments in the field to date broadly speaking uh the accomplishments in energy storage research including those that have been supported by Basic Energy Sciences uh in the past through our core research programs through our energy Frontier research centers and through the JC's or The Joint Center for energy storage research the the current energy storage Hub project that has been active since 2012 and is in its final year of operations in addition we encourage the applications to build upon all relevant International efforts in other words put your research into the context of what has happened before and what is currently going on in the field any award made under this foa is expected to be highly collaborative with other research efforts in batteries and electrochemical energy storage including any other award that being made under this foa as well as the broader electrochemical energy storage scientific community in other words we want these Awards to be interactive and engaged with the broad energy storage research communities with the goal to advance fundamental research and improve competitives of the U.S the proposed project should energize The Wider scientific and Technical electrochemical energy storage communities and really serve as national resources conveners and leaders we the the hubs that are funded uh through this program are anticipated to be leaders in the field of energy storage research moving on to section two of the uh of the of the um of the funding opportunity announcement with some of the information about the awards uh the estimated funding level for these Awards subject to the availability of future year Appropriations is up to 125 million per year in current and future fiscal year funds these are anticipated to be five-year Awards so the total funding is anticipated to be 25 million dollars per year over a five-year period again subject to the availability of congressional Appropriations uh the fullest the forest States a maximum and minimum award size we we anticipate doe anticipates that the awards will the award sizes will range from 8 million per year to 15 million per year though applications May request support in the range from 10 million to 15 million per year this gives us the flexibility to make Awards below this 10 million dollar floor uh if if appropriate but the the limit is 15 million the maximum the ceiling is 15 million dollars per year for any application given those numbers and is anticipated up to three Awards could be made though the number of awards the exact number will depend on the number of meritorious applications as well as the availability of appropriated funds it's anticipated that Doe will award Cooperative agreements National Laboratory authorizations or interagency agreements under this fella depending on the depending on the nature of the institutions receiving the award sorry about that um okay some more details I talked on the first slide about the requirement to have a pre-application um as stated here again for applications are required um if you were interested in competing for this funding opportunity announcement there is a limit of one pre-application per lead institution as I stated for for multi-institutional teams a single pre-application should be submitted by the lead institution and no institution May submit more than more than one as the lead institutions May participate as partners on multiple pre-applications without limit but may only lead one the pre-application must also include a letter of institutional support that must be signed by an official of the lead organization who has authority to commit institutional support for the application I'll talk a little bit more about that uh in a in a subsequent slide Federal program managers May evaluate some or all of the pre-applications to determine their competitiveness relative to Next Generation batteries and electrochemical energy storage any such review will be conducted by no fewer than three program managers based on the following four criteria these are stated in the funding opportunity announcement responsiveness to the objectives and requirements of the foa scientific and Technical Merit appropriateness of the proposed research approaches and likelihood of scientific impact this will be a comparative review and priority will be given to those pre-applications that are the most scientifically Innovative and forward-looking fundamental research and which we determined to have the highest likelihood of success as an application the applicants with those highest rated pre-applications will be encouraged to submit applications applications that have not been encouraged by Doe will be declined without review okay reminding you of some key dates I stated these up front but these are important uh the pre-application due date is March 9th uh approximately a month from now uh the due time the the time for that is 5 p.m eastern time and the pre-applications must be submitted by an authorized institutional official uh via the doe portfolio analysis and management system or pams and and all the details about submission into pams are included in the funding opportunity announcement um we as I as I stated earlier we will We may evaluate those uh those pre-applications for competitiveness and we'll provide a response no later than April 3rd 2023 uh notifying all pre-op pre-applicants of whether or not they are encouraged to submit an application um as stated in the fellow we expect to limit the number of full applications to approximately 10 with the exact number based on the quality and the number of pre-applications that we receive those applicants who are encouraged to submit an application may do so no later than May 18th uh 11 59 PM eastern time um and those are submitted through the governmentwide grants.gov website which
is linked here again applications that have not been encouraged by Doe will be declined without Merit review we anticipate that the awards will be made during fiscal year 2023 which ends at the end of September we include here a list of common errors and or things to pay attention to a checklist for pre-applications I note that this is not comprehensive a list of all four requirements we're just highlighting some of the key elements and once again we we encourage you to read the details in the funding opportunity announcement to make sure that your pre-application meets all the requirements um again basic research the scope must be basic research that is consistent with the scope described in section one of the foa we are not soliciting applied research or technology development or deployment uh and the pre-applications must address at least one and up to three of the priority research directions from the 27 basic research needs for Next Generation electrochemical energy storage Workshop as I stated before the pre-application must include a letter of institutional support assigned by an official of the lead organization who has authority to commit institutional support for doe National Laboratory applicants That official should be the laboratory director for other applicants the official who signs should be someone with authority over research activities for the entire Institution for example a vice president for research a chief technology officer or an equivalent position your applications must also include a list of individuals who should not serve as mirror viewers of a subsequent application there's lots of details of how to craft such a list in sec in this section of the foa 8.8.10 this is essentially a list of collaborators for all the individuals named on the pre-application because those collaborators are considered to have a conflict of interest but again the details of how to craft this are shown here a template an Excel template for putting together this list is available on our website at the link here and this list should then be converted to a PDF and attached to the pre-application it does not count toward the prepaid limit for the pre-application recognizing that these lists can be quite long again the pre-application should be submitted into our Pam system not via the grants.gov system and again instructions on doing that are in the funding opportunity announcement the due date of March 9th and I'll note here that late submissions are very rarely accepted there are there's some language about uh late submissions in section 4.f.4 of the foa but we strongly
encourage you to start the process early and ensure that submissions are put into the system well before the deadline moving on to the application stage again a checklist not a comprehensive comprehensive list of all four requirements um it's stated in the foa that the scope of the work uh in other words the total work effort as measured by the budget to be performed by the lead institution must be greater than that of any other institution involved in the application thus the the budget requested that the lead institution must be the largest fraction of the budget doesn't have to be the majority but does have to be the largest budget relative to the other partner institutions that is our definition of the lead institution um the person indicated to lead the Project Director must be the same as the person who was indicated on the pre-application and the application must it must include biographical sketches and lists of current impending support for each senior Key Personnel listed in the in the application I encourage you to carefully follow the instructions in the foa on how to put together the biographical sketch and the current impending support uh compared to past submissions these are no longer included as attachments to the research narrative but are attached to the research and related senior key person profile form in the application and there are additional instructions in section 8A 9 through 11 of the funding opportunity announcement that also includes details about what information to include in the biographical sketch and what information to include in the list of current impending support and again as a reminder the applications are due are by May 18th 11 59 PM eastern time via the grants.gov system not the Pam system into which the pre-application were submitted and as with the pre-applications we strongly encourage you to get the submission into the system well before the deadline to avoid the risk of of a late submission which are rarely accepted by Doe okay finally before I open it up to questions and I see we already have some questions in the Q a that's that's great um where to find more information the funding opportunity announcement is posted in grants.gov it is also posted on the office of science website listed here uh under funding opportunity now funding opportunities uh this webinar which is being recorded as well as the slides will be posted at the same link here along with the funding opportunity announcement within the next few days or by early next week I believe um any questions about this funding opportunity announcement that aren't answered today or that come up after this webinar uh need to be submitted via the FED connect portal www.fedconnect.net if you register in
fed connect and respond as interest as an interested party uh that allows you to submit questions um that you have and get them answered it also allows you to see any other questions and answers that have been submitted into the system so this essentially becomes a kind of FAQ for the funding opportunity announcement and all questions uh related to the funding opportunity announcement must go through this fed connect system with that this is my final slide I encourage you if you have questions today we have as I said the remainder of our hour to have a conversation and answer some of your questions either in text or orally please use the zoom q a window you'll see it at the bottom or somewhere on your Zoom window if you open it up you can submit questions and as those questions are answered you'll also see the questions and answers from others and again if your question is not answered today if we don't get to it or if you come up with additional questions as you work toward the pre-application and potentially application submission please go ahead and submit those into fedconnect.net and with that I will stop take a breath and turn it back over to Michael who is going to moderate our q a session thank you very much Andy so we'll be keeping an eye on the Q a box uh a few questions have already been answered uh while you were speaking by text but we'll be happy to continue answering questions there and also answer some live uh one of the first questions uh I think you might be able to help expand on though it was answered uh in the text and chat uh about multi-institutional applications and whether single entity applications are acceptable for this foa that's our single entity applications are allowable for this foa so if you believe that you have all the capabilities and expertise to uh at your institution that is that is allowable and acceptable for this funding opportunity as well all right uh our next question is about the scope of the foa so lithium bad lithium ion batteries are out of scope for this foa but does it apply to other lithium batteries such as lithium sulfur lithium air or lithium solid state batteries well I'll start that answer and I may then turn it over to one of my colleagues to elaborate um uh yes I believe that we are we other lithium Technologies beyond the commercial lithium-ion Technologies would be or science relevant to the other lithium Technologies uh would be uh responsive could be responsive to this funding opportunity announcement really this is meant to drive uh Drive uh the science that will provide the foundation for future Technologies Beyond current lithium ion Technologies um Craig do you want to add anything to that yeah just to follow along the the foa does discuss that there's a need for transformative Technologies and then the foundational science to support those transformative um so I think that the standard you should consider is whether the system you're looking at is just a drop in replacement for current um commercial Technologies or really addresses the need for that transformational Battery Systems that provide different uh functionality allow for different things especially things like long duration storage on the grid so to the extent that a chemistry looks like lithium and the fact that it has lithium in it doesn't exclude it it you should pay attention to is it likely to be transformative and result in the kinds of Battery Systems we need for the future rather than just replace lithium as a drop-in replacement thanks Greg all right we have uh another question to help understand the pre-application review process in particular could you go and do a little more detail on what is considered during the pre-application review process so the the I I would say that we look so you can read the funding opportunity announcement which has more detail than I gave on what is expected in a pre-application uh and I would follow that and then as I as I pointed out we have four uh criteria that we uh that we look to when we're reviewing pre-applications um we look to the responsiveness the objective some of these questions we've already been addressing are these Innovative forward-looking basic science that is likely to be trying to provide transformative understanding uh for energy storage Technologies we look at the scientific and Technical Merit the strength of the science uh and the and the approaches that are proposed uh and then we look at the impact and the likelihood of impact and make an assessment and again it's comparative we're looking at them relative to the other submissions that we have received that we will receive in the pre-applications so I I think the key is to look uh look to the funding opportunity announcement uh look to what's described in the scope section section one and the details of what is to what is expected to be in a pre-application I did notice there was one question which I think Mike answered in text about whether there is a template we don't provide a formal template but there are there is there are descriptions in the funding opportunity announcement about what we expect uh and look and is uh looked for in a pre-application and I encourage you to to make sure that your pre-application clearly addresses all of the elements that are contained there all right thank you uh so I'll go down the list a few other questions have come in um one is is there a preference between vehicle battery science and long duration battery signs uh both are within the scope of the foa so there is not and there's not a particular preference we are we are looking for research that has the possibility and back to it to impact either or both of those areas so there's no particular preference given for one over the other uh and I think this one Mike zarkin just answered by text but it could be worth mentioning uh how will you evaluate Workforce Development uh deia environmental justice 40 um during the review process so um so there's a lot built into that so I'll answer maybe part of that so all of our funding opportunity announcements uh from Office of science including this one uh now um now and now we have a requirement not at the pre-application stage but the application to include uh what we call a peer plan p-i-e-r promoting inclusive Equitable research I hope I got that right the acronym P ier so you must include this beer plan and we there's again guidance in the uh in the funding opportunity announcement uh that will that gives you guidance on what to include in this and and in addition uh evaluation of that peer plan is part of our external Merit review so we will look at that and we will also ask the Merit reviewers to look at that and evaluate the strength and and efficacy of those plans uh for inclusive Equitable research environments so that answers I think part of your question um and in general uh you know we will we will look at all of those factors in making are doing our assessment in addition to the scientific and Technical merits of the of the proposed application all right I'm keeping an eye on the questions list uh remember you can put your questions into the Pod and we'll keep an eye out try to answer them both live and by text uh one question is about how hbcus can participate and whether they can be the lead organization so absolutely uh 100 yes as I said I'll all domestic entities including academic institutions not non-profit profit for-profit and doe National Laboratories can participate as the lead or as a partner institution so hbcus absolutely are eligible to participate either you know lead uh leading role or as a partner with another with other institutions and so I I encourage you to to look for those opportunities to partner or look for opportunities to lead in partnership with other with other organizations foreign so a couple questions on the scope of the foa first is capacitor or super capacitor work allowed in the scope of this foa so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna take this one over to Craig to answer to make sure I don't get it wrong okay so the simple answer to this is the foa solicits research on the conversion of electricity to chemical bond storage or chemical storage of energy so if the super capacitor capacitor that you're thinking about simply stores the energy in electric field then that would not be what's intended in this foa but solutions that in some way convert the electricity to chemical storage than they are intended in this in this foam and remember again that the the foe is targeting technologies that will have a significant impact on decarbonization so that typically favors chemical storage rather than electric field storage and another question on the scope of the foa would a furthering of lead acid technology be acceptable for this program so I again I think that it's a you know without without seeing the details it's hard to say again it needs to be forward-looking and Innovative if it's just an incremental Improvement on a current technology it would it would likely not at least not be strongly competitive uh and maybe not responsive to this program if you have an idea of a transformative uh advance that in that space um you know potentially but it's hard to make the final judgment without um without seeing details Craig do you want to add anything to that yeah that would be my answer is that again going back to the same parallel to the lithium lithium sulfur lithium metal answer it has to be transformative it has to be scalable it has to affect decarbonization and it has to be what you would consider Next Generation opening up new possibilities of how energy storage can be used to decarbonize the economy thank you so next question will you be creating a teaming list for potential partnering so we have not created a teaming list um so so the answer the simple answer is no um we encourage the uh the community to look for those opportunities for partnering but we have we have not created any uh specific teaming lists that can be used for partnering uh and is there a preference to include non-r1 universities as members of the team so 911 universities are certainly eligible uh as part of the team or in principle even as a lead again all academic institutions and domestic academic institutions are uh I would not say that there's a particular preference given I you know we want and but we are certainly uh broadly across the office of science uh supportive of expanding uh uh expanding um uh research to institutions and individuals who have historically been underrepresented in our program so to the extent those you're talking about an institution that meets that that that the language and the foa encourages uh inclusion of such institutions I would expect all right uh so back to some scope questions can a proposal team address multiple chemistries in parallel such as solid state battery and sync ion aqueous batteries so I would this the the short answer is yes I mean these are these are relatively large projects and and can have uh multiple uh um topics uh and thrusts themes within them uh we are looking for an integrated hole so there has to be some connectivity and some connection uh in the uh some cohesivity to the whole project so you need to make sure that the pieces fit together well in a way that makes sense fit together scientifically but to the extent you can do that yes absolutely you can include multiple chemistries Craig do you want to add anything to that yeah simply just to remind you that this is fundamental research and to pigeonhole your your activities into certain Technologies might make it appear that it's more applied than than fundamental so again fundamental basic research it can cover multiple Technologies but uh our next question is there an additional requirement for energy density in addition to the long duration um so um no we don't have specific metrics or targets for particular technology metrics within this foa because again it is it is fundamental research right so it's from the perspective of the foe we are not targeting certain energy densities or certain uh durations though again what we're looking for is the science that could and we hope will eventually enable those transformation transformative improvements in technology capabilities much our next question could you clarify whether a production and Manufacturing process Innovation could be considered as a fundamental research um I can try though it's hard again with not so much detail so um that that's a that's a tricky one um yes there is basic research that that impacts uh manufacturing and processing and one could potentially Envision a proposal to do that fundamental science but I think the key is that that you really have to identify what are the basic science knowledge gaps that are limiting some of that production or manufacturing capability and focus your efforts on those identified knowledge gaps again with with the goal of really making transformative you know in a lot enabling future transformative uh improvements in the technology not uh not not incremental uh improvements uh so our next question can machine learning Solutions be applicable for the priority research challenges mentioned in the foa I would I would have to say Yes um again I I think if you have some innovative ideas using artificial intelligence machine learning or whatever techniques or combinations of techniques uh to address these challenging problems absolutely so I think broadly speaking um Theory synthesis computation artificial intelligence machine learning these are all all the tools of science and and what you need to think about is how to put those together in a way that that is most effectively going to achieve your scientific goals that you've set out in the in the application uh so just a reminder to anyone who's connected you can open the Q a box and add any questions you're interested in having answered either written or live with Andy and others connected here today and we'll try to respond to what we can uh our next question would applications of energy storage Technologies to electricity grids uh for example for resilience evaluation and grid decarbonization be acceptable in this program so so yes as we described earlier we are looking for basic research that is uh that is relevant to both the grid and to Transportation but again we're not looking the question started with the word applications we're not looking for the applications we're looking for the basic research that's going to enable those future applications so as long as what you're asking about is basic science that that could enable uh transformations to decarbonize the electricity grid then yes uh and perhaps somewhat related uh is any TRL level preferred for this foa yes okay good question I'll try to do my best with this so TRL as probably most of you know technology Readiness level is a phrase that's used in various um in various contexts about you know where where a technology stands compared to final commercialization because this is focused on basic research basic science we typically don't talk in terms of TRL levels um that's not what we're doing we're not doing technology Readiness we're doing the basic science and as I tried to point out on one of the slides that means that actually the basic science could potentially have impact at many at various TRL levels I mean the simple way to think of it is that this is the start and then when it moves into technology applied research and Technology development it goes on to the TRL scale but you could have a work that's going on at a higher TRL level that's that's that's being impeded by some scientific knowledge Gap at you know some opportunity if you can identify that and then Focus your efforts on the science to fill that Gap and move that you know potentially move that technology forward you could you know have fundamental science that's relevant at higher technology what Readiness levels but in general again we're not we're not doing technology development or deployment here we're doing basic science so we don't tend to talk in terms of the technology Readiness level that is appropriate and that's technology Readiness level is not mentioned uh in the no technology to Readiness levels are mentioned in the funding opportunity announcement all right looking down our list of questions uh one is is battery science that could be built from domestic resources preferred um so Supply chains are obviously important and uh for for technology development and for commercialization really what we're focused on here is the basic science now I do think the and so it's it's it's um it's not directly tied to potential future supply chain and sources of resources that said I think there are um challenges and and scientific ones around materials criticality and criticality can be can be uh the result of various factors and so to the extent you're doing research you can propose research that could uh could alleviate the criticality issues potential criticality issues for Technologies going forward then I think that could be relevant to a a relevant element of a proposal to this funding opportunity announcement thank you [Music] uh another question will you accept a current technology that introduces new components to multiply the output of the technology so again it's a short question as written I think I have to say no we're not talking about technology development here right so this is this is basic science so as written I think the question is uh um the answer to the question is likely no but again without without more details uh it is it's difficult um I should remind people too if you're if if my answers are a little short not you're not getting what you want uh I I apologize but the you're always willing to to submit a longer more detailed question through the fedconnect portal uh if you're if you feel you need to um or if that would be valuable and we'll try to provide uh uh more um extensive answers to the extent we can uh through that mechanism uh and another question about scope are algorithmic innovations that would enable faster charging in conjunction with battery chemistry enhancement would they that be within scope um okay this I'm going to struggle with this one Craig may be able to bail me out a little bit um I I think that some combination of the algorithms with the chemistry uh you know we this is you know Basic Energy Sciences is uh is emphasizes Material Sciences and uh and chemistry uh that that's the focus of our mission space and so the research that we're generally supporting is in the in those spaces not in algorithmic development um that said if there's an element of The Proposal that is uh uh algorithmic there might be a way to include that as a component of the uh of a proposal um Craig do you want to add anything to that yeah this the answer to this question plus the I think the last one which one could Envision maybe components being like a battery management system or some sort of charging algorithm all those things might be associated with the battery chemistry and there may be a tendency to want to include them but again the the fundamental nature of the research shouldn't allow you to go into what is essentially technology development or application specific research so to the extent that those things need to be looked at a fundamental standpoint sure but again this is fundamental science not technology development and those kinds of things oftentimes are part of systems engineering all right thank you I'm trying to keep an eye on other questions as they come in um one about the members that can be part of a team you touched on this a bit but can National Labs other than the does be part of a team uh the answer is yes but only as a partner member not as the lead institution so um other federal agencies or the ffrdcs of those agencies are eligible to participate as partners but not as the lead Institution uh so just as a reminder as we wait for any final questions to come in that the recording will be available uh online and there's more information of course available and more questions can be answered through fed connect uh so one of the questions that came in uh is research on a Quantum battery that utilizes Quantum systems to enhance battery performance considered two fundamental and not favored for this foa so I I would say that there's I I don't think that too fundamental is a concern there's nothing I don't you know we are looking for fundamental science uh I with that level of detail on I I can't comment on the specific details but I can but if you have uh ideas about how to use quantum uh quantum mechanics or Quantum information science in in battery um science then I think that is could potentially be relevant and so I think nothing is too fundamental let's say it that way likely and also regarding scope uh what about hybrid allies um I don't know enough that there's not enough to tell the answer Craig do you want to um I assume it's lithium-ion capacitors so again I'll go back to their previous answer that if the storage mechanism is could be considered as chemical storage or formation of chemical bonds redox reactivity periodic charge storage those kinds of things then it fits within the definition of the foa but if it's simply storing energy with through an electric field then that's what I would call a standard capacitor and that's not included in this photo uh and another question about potential scope uh are battery technologies that can accommodate expansion of Next Generation electrodes through actuation reasonably within the scope so I think the the short answer as as the question is written which is battery technologies is that the answer is probably not if it's really about battery technologies if it's about fundamental science to to understand and address issues of expansion than potentially within scope if there's basic science to be done to address the materials or chemistry issues uh related to electrode expansion as as I as best I understand the question well many thanks to everyone who's joined us today to talk about this funding opportunity I'm not seeing any other questions in our chat uh okay we actually had a few just pop in so uh another reminder as we're coming close to time please do add your questions to the Q a box so that we can try to answer them as part of this session uh do you have a specific definition of transformative is there a range of minimum Improvement in any particular metric that's expected so the answer is no that we don't and the foa does not define transformative and I know that's potentially challenging but really it's your we want you to make the case uh to us that this is transformative um uh that this is really going to enable a dramatic improvements potentially again it's all about the foundations but we're laying the foundations for dramatic improvements uh in energy storage Technologies uh in the future and it's a longer term time scale we're not looking at the next year or two we're really looking at the science being impactful uh into the into the longer term five to ten year Beyond future so so no no definition of transformative um um but you know we're looking to you as the applicants to make the case to us right I see this last one Michael I can try to answer this um somebody asked about whether whether that they have a technology that's probably too too um applied for this foa but they're interested in sharing it with us and so all of our contact info is available you can find me your Craig or anybody it's probably the case that you don't want to be talking to us in the basic science part of Dewey but maybe into more applied offices and we can help you to try to connect if if that's if if that would be helpful all right well once again thank you very much Andy and thanks to the other people who are helping us respond to questions today uh Linda Craig John Mike sarkin uh I don't see any other questions in our chat so I'll just remind all the viewers that we'll have the full video online as a reference uh please look for that and of course further questions can be asked through the FED connect portal so thank you all very much for joining us today thank you everyone and thank you Michael for moderating I appreciate it
2023-02-17 09:11
