From 2012 to 2023, JCESR was one of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Energy Innovation Hubs. The mission of these Hubs is to advance promising areas of energy science and engineering from the earliest stages of research to the point of commercialization.

JCESR’s research focused exclusively on the development of next-generation, beyond-lithium-ion batteries. Such batteries could allow inexpensive electric cars to drive five times farther on a single charge, rivaling the 400-mile range of conventional gasoline cars. They would also make storing and releasing electricity on the grid just as cheap as generating it with natural gas turbines.

Such ambitious goals required a new paradigm for government-funded research. Led by DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, JCESR participants included government, academic, and industrial researchers from many disciplines. These participants were united in a major research project that combined discovery science, battery design, research prototyping, and manufacturing collaboration in a single highly interactive organization.