U.S. DOE offers funding for energy storage manufacturability improvements

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) has allocated up to $8 million for promoting domestic manufacturing of energy storage technologies.
The Aligning Manufacturability & Pre-production Design (AMPD) for Storage Technologies Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) seeks to improve the manufacturability of energy storage technologies through pre-production design innovations.
Such early-stage innovation is expected to compress lengthy and uncertain storage technology development timelines, cut capital costs for consumers, and strengthen the community of domestic manufacturers, the announcement said.
“Through the research and development of improvements at the earliest production stage, this funding opportunity advances a cost-effective, secure, and reliable grid by promoting domestic manufacturing of energy storage technologies,” said Gene Rodrigues, assistant secretary for the Office of Electricity. “Making energy storage technologies affordable will help increase their widespread deployment and use.”
The NOFO is open to institutes of higher education, for-profit entities, non-profit entities, state and local government entities, Tribal entities, and other innovators working to improve pre-production design of energy storage technologies.
Applicants may be individuals or teams and may apply here. The deadline for applications is March 17, 2025.
Last month, the DoE released a draft Energy Storage Strategy and Roadmap which aims to “improve the execution of its energy storage activities” and consider significant advances in energy storage technology and deployment since its 2020 roadmap.
The DOE released its first comprehensive energy storage strategy, the Energy Storage Grand Challenge, in December 2020 with the goal to develop and domestically manufacture energy storage technologies that can meet all U.S. market demands by 2030. For its new draft strategy, comments and information are requested on or before February 3, 2025.