News

Nan Zhou, Staff Scientist and Deputy Group Leader at the China Energy Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory signed MOU with Youwei Wang, Chairman of the China Green Building Council at the 9th China Green Building Council Committee Meeting as a part of the Annual China Green Building Conference on March 30, 2016 in Beijing, China. Green buildings development is very important to... Read more

On March 29, 2016, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Associate Lab Director Dr. Ramamoorthy Ramesh kicked off the Energy Technology Area’s first Celebration of Excellence highlighting the scientific accomplishments and congratulating ETA staff from BTUS, ESDR, Cyclotron Road, and EAEI. EAEI Division Director Charles Goldman presented awards for his Division. Among the honorees were Lynn... Read more

Robert Kostecki of the Energy Technologies Area received a 2016 International Battery Association Research Award for his “outstanding research on battery materials and characterization of fundamental electrochemical phenomena.” The IBA Awards honor significant contributions to battery research that have advanced the development of energy storage systems.... Read more

Berkeley Lab’s Venkat Srinivasan recently traveled to Washington, D.C., in his role as Deputy Director of R&D for DOE’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research. Srinivasan, with JCESR Director George Crabtree, briefed members and staff of the California Congressional delegation on JCESR’s progress to date. Srinivasan also spoke about the success of CalCharge.... Read more

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s China Energy Group is pleased to announce that Dr. Jiang Lin has recently joined the Group as a Staff Scientist. For the last eight years, Dr. Lin has been the Director of the Energy Foundation’s China Sustainable Energy Program (2007-2013) and Senior Vice President for Strategy and Analysis (2014-2016). Dr. Lin managed the growth of Energy Foundation... Read more

A delegation from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) visited the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) on March 15th, 2016. Mr. Yang Tiesheng, Deputy Director General of the Department of Energy Conservation and Resource Utilization of MIIT led the delegation team. The delegation was consist of members from MIIT, China Center of... Read more

Automated vehicles can both drive more efficiently and be designed to be lighter, saving energy. However, the convenience of not having to pay attention on the road may lead people to use them more, increasing energy consumption. Which effect will tend to prevail? ETA’s Jeff Greenblatt seeks to answer that question in a blog posted on Move Forward.... Read more

Ambassador Max Sieben Baucus was accompanied by his wife, Melodee Hanes and Evan Felsing, Deputy Section Chief for Economic Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, on a visit to Berkeley Lab last week. During their meeting with Director Mike Witherell, Ashok Gadgil (Energy Technologies Area Deputy for Science and Technology), and Lynn Price and Nan Zhou (ETA's China Energy Group), they discussed... Read more

Venkat Srinivasan of the Energy Technologies Area was a finalist for the East Bay Economic Development Alliance Innovation Awards. He was recognized in the “Catalyst” category for his efforts towards creating the CalCharge consortium, which connects East Bay companies with Lab scientists to develop battery technology.The following is the San Francisco Business Times article about the CalCharge... Read more

A new report issued by researchers in the Energy Technologies Area, “Maximizing MWh: A Statistical Analysis of the Performance of Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Projects in the United States,” presents the first known use of multivariate regression techniques to statistically explore empirical variation in utility-scale PV project performance across the United States.... Read more

Low-cost coating would disrupt the building retrofit market and potentially save billions in electricity.It’s estimated that 10 percent of all the energy used in buildings in the U.S. can be attributed to window performance, costing building owners about $50 billion annually, yet the high cost of replacing windows or retrofitting them with an energy efficient coating is a major deterrent. U.S.... Read more

President Obama has named 106 researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Included on the list this year is Michael Stadler of Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area (ETA).“These... Read more

The China Energy Group hosted its 8th annual Chinese New Year Party on February 17th. More than 100 people from across the Lab’s many departments came to celebrate the Year of the Monkey. The event also gave the China Energy Group an opportunity to thank everyone for the work they do that supports our efforts. Our guests came from the Affiliates Office, Budget Office, Communications Office,... Read more

The January/February issue of Mother Jones magazine quotes Jeff Greenblatt on autonomous vehicles. A Scientific American article also quoted Greenblatt on how driverless cars may slow pollution.... Read more

Berkeley, CA — The price of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems installed on homes and small businesses spans a wide range, and researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have published a new study that reveals the key market and system drivers for low-priced PV systems.Berkeley Lab’s Ryan Wiser, a co-author of the study, explains,... Read more

New funding from DOE will lead to improved security of distribution systemThe nation’s electric power system is central to the U.S. economy and our growing need for clean, reliable, and secure electric power. Yet today’s electric grid is under increasing pressure to change and modernize in the face of emerging challenges and technological opportunities.Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz... Read more

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Superior Energy Performance® (SEP™) certifies industrial facilities that implement an energy management system that meets the ISO 50001 global energy management system standard and achieve improved energy performance.In December 2015, Hilton Worldwide gained the distinction of being the first hospitality company—as well as the first company outside the... Read more

Berkeley Lab researchers find that controlling surface chemistry is important to developing high-energy lithium-ion batteries.Lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide, or NMC, is one of the most promising chemistries for better lithium batteries, especially for electric vehicle applications, but scientists have been struggling to get higher capacity out of them. Now researchers at Lawrence Berkeley... Read more

Dr. Nan Zhou, Staff Scientist and Deputy Group Leader of the China Energy Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory participated and spoke at the 26th China-US Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) in Guangzhou, co-chaired by China’s Vice Premier Wang Yang, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman in November 2015.Dr. Nan Zhou was... Read more

Berkeley, CA — A new study estimates that $2.2 billion in benefits came from reduced greenhouse gas emissions and $5.2 billion from reductions in other air pollution for state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) policies operating in 2013. The report also shows national water withdrawals and consumption were reduced by 830 billion gallons and 27 billion gallons in 2013, respectively. The report,... Read more

The Grid Integration Group (Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Division) has been awarded a grant for a “Modular, Secure, and Replicable Microgrid Control System for Generation and Storage Management at Military Installations” at Fort Hunter Liggett by the Department of Defense’s Environmental Security Technology Certification Program.... Read more

The Department of Energy announced historic new efficiency standards for commercial air conditioners and furnaces. The Lab’s Energy Technologies Area provided technical assistance to DOE and the stakeholder working group that negotiated the standards, as well as conducted the supporting energy savings and economic analyses which were key inputs to forge this consensus.... Read more

New Berkeley Lab study uses regional climate model to compare heat waves to normal summer conditions.It is well established that white roofs can help mitigate the urban heat island effect, reflecting the sun’s energy back into space and reducing a city’s temperature under normal weather conditions. In a new study of Guangzhou, China, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)... Read more

Berkeley Lab researchers’ discovery may enable next-generation cathodes.Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a novel electrolyte for use in solid-state lithium batteries that overcomes many of the problems that plague other solid electrolytes while also showing signs of being compatible with next-generation... Read more

Marca Doeff’s research is focused on materials for Li-ion batteries, sodium ion batteries, and solid state batteries, including discovery of a cathode material that has higher capacity than traditional layered materials. She has recently posted a history of cathode development for Li-ion batteries in a popular battery blog.... Read more