US opens first national lab production line for safer grid-scale batteries

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has opened a prismatic battery cell production line at the Grid Storage Launchpad in Washington state.

The pilot facility can manufacture, test, and validate advanced battery designs at near-industrial scale in a dry lab environment.

It will support sodium-ion and lithium-iron-phosphate cells, giving researchers and industry partners a path to scale safer grid-storage batteries.

The project aims to lower costs, speed commercialization, and improve deployment of grid-scale energy storage.