“This summer, San Jose State University (California) will offer the first classes of CalCharge Battery University, a series in its professional development program intended to train a work force for the next generation of battery makers. The curriculum is being developed by experts from the emerging battery storage sector – mostly from the San Francisco Bay Area – and will focus not only on developing the technology, but also on ways to make it cost-effective and realistically usable in electric cars, renewable energy or smartphones and laptops” wrote the New York Times on April 8.

Bill Gates hailed the idea and stated it was a great idea to offer a “battery university” for this fast growing and critical industry.

CalCharge is a partnership between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and CalCEF, a family of nonprofit organizations working to promote the transition to a clean energy economy. CalCharge will bring together battery technology developers, major end-users and other stakeholders focused on consumer, transportation and grid-scale applications. CalCharge will provide groundbreaking mechanisms for conducting collaborative research projects with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its partners.

For more information, please contact Michel Foure: mfoure@lbl.gov

Beginning May 2013, the rapidly emerging California battery sector will have access to new resources to accelerate its growth: an opportunity to work alongside world-class scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This opportunity is available to members of CalCharge, a partnership of Berkeley Lab and CalCEF that serves as a “center of gravity” for this emerging industry. The unique agreement announced today offers companies an expedited path to collaborate with Berkeley Lab scientists and gain access to the Lab’s state-of-the-art scientific research facilities for proprietary research and development projects.
Public-private research collaborations are critical to accelerating research in batteries, according to Venkat Srinivasan, head of the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources group at Berkeley Lab. “Private companies are eager to tap into the talent at the national labs, to have access to the best scientists, and the best equipment,” he said. “As a national lab, we’re also eager to help bridge the gap between basic and applied research. We think this agreement will knock down a barrier to innovation that will give the California  industry the opportunity to achieve meaningful breakthroughs in battery technology.”