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In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the nation's dependency on imported fossil fuels, it is vital that we harvest as much renewable energy as possible, which, in turn, can benefit from efficient, large-scale energy storage systems that can buffer variable energy supply. Recent progress in battery technology has made it possible to use batteries to store energy, and then power platforms that incur a significant energy load such as transportation vehicles, homes and industrial buildings.
However, the slow pace of improvement is insufficient to make the performance of rechargeable batteries competitive with--and an attractive alternative to--for example, conventional powertrains, including gasoline combustion engines. In particular, when a large number of battery cells (e.g., a 6800-cell pack for Tesla S model and a 300-cell pack for GM Volt) are put together as a pack, their electrochemical interaction and reaction can shorten the pack's life significantly despite the high quality of individual cells.Image credit: Computer Science and Engineering Division of Electrical Engineering and the Computer Science Department, University of Michigan
