US DOE To Award $15 Million To Developers Of Extremely Fast Electric Vehicle Charging Tech
The US Department of Energy will be awarding up to $15 million in grants to support the development of “extremely” fast plug-in electric vehicle charging systems and batteries — systems and tech capable of operating at high power levels, that is.
The new FOA from the US Department of Energy (DOE) is divided into two primary Areas of Interest — one concerning batteries for extreme fast charging, and one concerning extreme fast charging (XFC) systems for plug-in electric vehicles.
The first area of interests (AOI 1) is called Extreme Fast Charging Systems for Electric Vehicles and calls for the development and verification of systems that can charge an electric vehicle in half of the time of current fast-chargers.
“Projects should detail technical approaches to drive system and battery development that can enable XFC, charger installation and demonstration, infrastructure impact studies, and reduced vehicle charging time proposition analysis,” Green Car Congress reports.
“The DOE is especially interested in projects that encourage the development of plug-in electric vehicle systems which can recharge rapidly at high power. Developing these systems should allow plug-in electric vehicles to be charged much faster than current vehicle charging, enable greater use of electricity for transportation, and encourage widespread use of plug-in vehicles that can demonstrate zero emissions operation.”
With regard to the second area of interest (AOI 2), the US DOE is looking for the development of next-gen fast-charge battery cells capable of surpassing 500 10-minute fast-charge cycles (with a less than 20% drop in specific energy), that also achieve or improve upon state-of-the-art cost and energy density.
What that relates to in practice are battery cells with a greater than 200 Wh/kg energy density and a cost of under $150/kWh, that can achieve at least 500 10-minute fast-charge cycles.
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