Keeping the Power On: The Business Case for Emerging Energy Storage Technologies

Stephen Hendrickson is a Program Manager in the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) at the U.S. Department of Energy. OTT serves as the central hub for the technology transfer activities across the Department of Energy.

Stephen leads OTT’s market analysis activities to identify opportunities to commercialize DOE-developed technologies. His background includes work at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He has a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan, a Master’s in International Development and Global Political Economy from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MBA from the University of Colorado. His lives in Rockville, Maryland with his wife and three children.

Mr. Abderrahim Jamrani is the Engineering Director of Masen and has been active in the energy sector for more than 30 years. As head of a multidisciplinary engineering team, Mr. Jamrani works to identify the appropriate renewable energy mix to be developed in order to respond to Moroccan electrical demand.

Prior to Masen, he was the Energy Director for CMH Group (now Winxo), a fuel oil supplier, and served as Procurement Director for the National Electric Utility ONEE where he worked on fossil fuels hedging (coal, gas and oil) and wind parks. Mr Jamrani participated actively in the legal, financial and technical structuring of the Moroccan general rural electrification program ‘PERG,’ as well as in the implementation of the program. The rural electrification rate in Morocco recently reached 99 percent, whereas it was less than 15 percent in 1994. Mr. Jamrani has a degree in Engineering from INPG Grenoble, France and an MBA from Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussée de Paris (ENPC).

Vinod Siberry is an engineer in the Advanced Grid Research and Development (AG R&D) division of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE) and has served in this role since September of 2019.

Most of Vinod’s work has been in the energy storage program under AG R&D, a portfolio of activities that addresses a wide range of barriers for storage technologies from materials R&D to system deployment at scale. Vinod is currently leading activities in two specific thrust areas of the program: Safety and Reliability R&D for grid scale storage and Energy Storage Valuation and Analytics. He also supports strategic initiatives such as the Energy Storage Grand Challenge (ESGC) which is a DOE wide initiative to develop a comprehensive strategy to enable the U.S. to position itself as a world leader in energy storage. Vinod graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park where he majored in Mechanical Engineering and minored in Sustainability.

Dr. Pimpa Limthongkul earned a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University in 1997 and a Ph.D. degree in the same field with a minor in Technology and Policy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002. She is currently the Energy Storage Research Team Leader at the National Energy Technology Center (ENTEC), Thailand.

Dr. Limthongkul has over 25 years of research and work experience in the academic, government, and private sectors in Thailand and the United States. During the past 20 years, her work has been geared towards the development of energy storage materials and systems throughout the value chain to prepare for the transition to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and an efficient power grid. She is co-author of over 70 scientific publications, a co-inventor of over 20 patents/patents applications, and has led over 70 research projects funded by both government and private sectors. She has received awards including the L’oreal for Women in Science fellowship (Thailand) in 2014 and the Innovation Award from Petroleum Institute of Thailand (PTIT) in 2019. Her research has also helped found two battery companies: A123 Systems (2001) and 24M Technologies, Inc USA (2010).

Belén Gallego is the co-founder and CEO of ATA Insights, a lean strategic communications firm with significant renewable energy markets and technology knowledge. ATA Insights is an independent consultancy committed to connecting renewable energy companies with growth opportunities.

Belén is a renewable energy markets specialist, with significant expertise in solar energy, storage and renewable hydrogen.

Daniel F. Morris has spent the past twelve years working to build economic and policy solutions powerful enough to adequately address the climate crisis. He is currently a Senior Climate Change Specialist and Clean Energy Lead for the Climate Investment Funds (CIF). In this role, he works with CIF partners to support innovative clean energy operations that can lead to transformational change in energy systems of developing countries.

He has previously served as an Advisor to the U.S Executive Director of the World Bank and a Policy Analyst in the U.S. Treasury, where helped execute the agency’s responsibilities in the domestic and international climate and energy agenda of the United States. Prior to Treasury, he was a Center Fellow at the think tank Resources for the Future.

Amit has a Ph.D. in solar, is a Fulbright Scholar at NREL, and is a USA and Chevening Fellow at King’s College, London. He works with the World Bank and is leading a $2 billion renewable portfolio in India, Bangladesh and Maldives. This portfolio includes REWA and Charanka Solar Park, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. The project has received the World Bank Group President Award for innovation and excellence and is included in the Prime Minister's book 'A Book of Innovation: New Beginnings'.

Amit’s previous assignments include the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Clinton Foundation. Amit has authored two books on climate change policy and waste to energy and has several international peer-reviewed journal publications. His hobbies include scuba diving, badminton, and outdoor sports.

At the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Brittany recently joined the Low-Carbon Resources Team where she leads R&D and demonstration projects related to hydrogen production from electrolysis and works to understand electrolysis technology performance and the technical and economic considerations for adoption pathways and deployment on the grid.

She previously worked with EPRI’s Energy Storage and Distributed Generation Program to understand battery, storage, hydrogen, and fueled distribution technology performance characteristics and the role they play in a variety of applications from stationary storage, the transportation sector, and to support the generation sector. Dr. Westlake also works on understanding end-of-life and recycling implications of batteries, energy storage systems, and fuel cells to enable utility planning as they deploy these grid systems. Prior to joining EPRI, Brittany worked as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy. She has a BS in Chemistry from the University of Georgia and a MS and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Cliff Ho is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Senior Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, where he has worked since 1993 on problems involving solar energy, water safety and sustainability, heat- and mass-transfer processes in porous media, and microchemical sensor systems for environmental monitoring.

Dr. Ho has authored over 300 scientific papers, holds 18 patents, and is author and co-editor of two books. He received an Outstanding Professor Award at the University of New Mexico in 1997, and he received the national Asian American Engineer of the Year Award in 2010. Dr. Ho received an R&D 100 Award in 2013 for his development of the Solar Glare Hazard Analysis Tool, and an R&D 100 Award in 2016 for the development of the Falling Particle Receiver for Concentrating Solar Energy. In 2008, he won Discover magazine’s “The Future of Energy in Two-Minutes-or Less” video contest. Dr. Ho received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989, and his Master’s and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1990 and 1993.

Felipe has been a Green Hydrogen Specialist at the New Energy Carriers unit at the Chilean Ministry of Energy since 2021. This team has the main task of deploying public efforts for the successful execution of the National Green Hydrogen Strategy. He leads the integration with the power system and the development of analytical tools, supporting the link with the country's long-term decarbonization goals in energy systems.

Neha Rustagi is a Technology Manager leading the Systems Analysis, and Hydrogen Infrastructure portfolios within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Her key activities include management of analyses to inform Office priorities in support of the H2@Scale initiative and energy storage, the HyBlend initiative to enable hydrogen blending in natural gas pipelines, and the H-Mat consortium on hydrogen materials compatibility R&D. Previously, she has held positions in oil and gas market analysis, and engineering and environmental compliance at power generators. She received her B.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park and her M.S. from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She completed her M.S. thesis research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the area of materials compatibility with hydrogen.

Dr. Vincent Sprenkle is the strategic advisor for energy storage at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Vince provides leadership and guidance for PNNL’s R&D activities in support of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity’s energy storage program.

He also plays a key role in mission support and industry engagement for the Grid Storage Launchpad, a new DOE Office of Electricity grid energy storage R&D facility for the nation. Vince arrived at PNNL in 2001 and has served in a variety of scientific and leadership roles both at PNNL and for DOE related to electrochemical energy storage technologies. He has been active in electrochemical technologies for 25 years and currently holds 23 US patents on fuel cells, batteries, and high temperature electrochemical devices with 22 pending patent applications. He was named PNNL Inventor of the Year in 2014 and Distinguished Inventor of Battelle in 2017. Vince received his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in ceramic engineering from the Missouri University of Science & Technology.

Chibulu Luo is currently an Operations Officer with the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), where she supports various technical and operational projects, including new CIF programming on climate innovation, renewable energy integration, and energy storage. She is also a course instructor at the University of Toronto (where she obtained her PhD in Civil Engineering). Prior to her work with the CIF, Chibulu led doctoral research to examine current trends, future scenarios, and policy options for sustainable energy use and low-carbon development in fast-growing African cities. She is also a former Young Scientist with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA); a Doctoral Research Awardee with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada; and a Research Scholar with the University of Toronto’s Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN).

Dr. Jiravan Mongkoltanatas has long research experiences in the energy storage and power system. She graduated with a B.Eng in electrical engineering from Chulalongkorn University in 2007, Thailand and was in technical sales in the Department of Power Transmission and Distribution, Siemens Thailand. She then went on to earn her Ph.D. from Grenoble Institute of Engineering, France with a focus on energy storage system design for isolated microgrid, before returning as a researcher in the Energy Storage Technology Research Team at the National Energy Technology Center (ENTEC) Thailand. Her work at ENTEC since 2014 has involved energy storage system design and integration for various applications from small to large systems, including energy storage systems coupled with variable renewable energy in large grid and microgrid.

Peter has worked at Eskom for 40 years, with most of that time spent in the Research Division. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Large Scale Energy Storage Research initiative within Eskom Research and has pioneered the further use of energy storage to enhance the operation of the grid and to prevent future problems with the integration of renewables. Peter has presented at numerous conferences both locally and internationally on the subject of Energy Storage. He is presently Project Manager for the Eskom RT&D Large Scale Energy Storage Test & Demonstration Facility.

Brennan Smith manages the Wind and Water Power Technologies research program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which conducts basic and applied science and technology research for U.S. Department of Energy and other sponsors. Dr. Smith received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Iowa, and is a registered professional engineer in the State of Tennessee. He joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2005 and became the program manager for Wind and Water Power Technologies in 2008. The water power research portfolio at Oak Ridge National Laboratory includes hydropower technology development, resource assessment, energy and water optimization, power systems optimization and modeling, water quality and ecological impacts of water resources systems, and energy policy analysis. Dr. Smith also serves as the Leader of the Energy-Water Ecosystem Engineering Group at the Laboratory. Prior to joining the National Laboratory, Dr. Smith spent 10 years as a senior technical specialist in hydropower and river operations with the Tennessee Valley Authority, conducting applied research and engineering studies of turbine and hydraulic structures performance and environmental hydraulics of regulated river systems.