Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's (PNNL) Grid Storage Launchpad (GSL) has been honored with the 2025 Battery Council International (BCI) Innovation Award. This award recognizes the GSL's significant contributions to advancing energy storage technologies and its role as a national resource for developing and validating next-generation grid energy storage solutions.
Inaugurated in August 2024, the GSL, a $75 million initiative funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Electricity, is a 93,000-square-foot facility in Richland, Washington. It is designed to streamline the entire battery development lifecycle, from materials research to large-scale system testing, and houses approximately 100 researchers. The BCI Innovation Award, presented in May 2025, specifically acknowledges the GSL's success in accelerating the development, validation, and deployment of advanced battery energy storage systems, highlighting the crucial synergy between national laboratories and the private sector.
Roger Miksad, Executive Vice President of BCI, emphasized the importance of these collaborations in driving technological improvement and innovation in energy storage. Demonstrating this collaborative spirit, PNNL hosted a key meeting in March 2025 where energy storage companies and national laboratories convened to plan experiments for enhancing next-generation lead-based battery systems.
Beyond its award-winning work, PNNL researchers are also developing scalable room-temperature quantum batteries. In January 2025, a multi-layered organic-microcavity design achieved a significant advancement by exhibiting superextensive charging and metastabilization of stored energy, signaling a forward-thinking approach to energy storage with potential for novel efficiencies.
The GSL is also focused on long-duration energy storage solutions, particularly investing in redox flow battery technology. This research, complemented by high-throughput robotics, aims to accelerate the discovery of efficient flow battery materials, which are essential for grid modernization and integrating intermittent renewable energy sources. PNNL's efforts include developing novel electrolyte solutions and advanced simulation tools like the EZBattery Model, which enables rapid prediction of flow battery performance to optimize design processes.
As of August 2025, the Grid Storage Launchpad continues to be a vital center for cutting-edge energy storage research. Its diverse projects and collaborative initiatives underscore its integral role in advancing energy storage technologies toward a more sustainable and resilient energy future, merging scientific inquiry with practical application and testing to expedite the commercialization of reliable and cost-effective grid-scale storage solutions.