Since 2016, the BCI Innovation Award has recognized innovations within the battery industry that align with the guidelines of sustainability, safety, cost, performance, uniqueness and value. Learn more about the Innovation Award.
PNNL’s Grid Storage Launchpad (GSL) is a new, national capability for energy storage research located on the PNNL-Richland campus in Washington State. The GSL brings all phases of the battery development and deployment cycle under one roof, ranging from fundamental materials and device prototyping to 100 kW-scale testing and validation. This fully integrated facility encourages collaboration among researchers across disciplines, and was honored with the 2025 BCI Innovation Award.
Collaboration enabled by GSL will also support industry partners who wish to demonstrate and deploy energy storage technologies and educate grid energy storage professionals. Fast prototyping and comprehensive testing of the entire energy storage development cycle are features not found anywhere else within the national laboratory system.
The GSL is a critical step toward greater integration of renewable energy, transitioning cars from oil to electric, and unlocking economic and societal benefits for all U.S. citizens.
ENTEK is a global materials science and engineering company, and a preferred partner for customers in the Energy Storage industry. They produce and market lead-acid separators, lithium-ion separators, extruders, and engineering services on six continents. They combine best-in-class equipment with the pursuit of continuous improvement and innovation to give their customers industry-leading performance and reliability.
The 2024 BCI Innovation Award recognizes ENTEK’s solvent-free separator technology, providing a more environmentally friendly alternative that does not sacrifice strength or performance. Battery manufacturers can use this separator product within their existing capital equipment and manufacturing processes (e.g., enveloping).
The SCRUM process uses furnace fuming technology to separate the tin and lead into a concentrated fume form with very high selectivity and efficiency, leaving behind a “cleaned” bulk iron sodium-silicate “SCRUM Slag.” This unique process was honored with the 2023 BCI Innovation Award.
Gopher Resource’s innovative process separates 99% of useful metals from lead blast furnace slags, producing LME-grade tin and lead bullion that can be refined and used in new batteries. The remaining SCRUM Slag is an environmentally-friendly byproduct that can be repurposed and shows promising potential for commercialization. The ability to recover these metals from lead battery recycling slag in a safe, economically feasible way is an industry first.
Advanced Battery Concepts won the 2022 BCI Innovation Award for its ABC Home Emergency Energy Storage system build on a foundation of GreenSeal bipolar lead acid battery technology supported by a portfolio of 50+ patents and trade secrets. System solution to the residential energy stability issues plaguing aging grid infrastructure and over burdened generation sources. Additionally coupling with solar installations for a true microgrid solution.
Hammond Performance Additives’ patent-pending innovation, lead silicate enables batteries to achieve the benefits of reduced acid stratification without any of the downsides inherent to traditional solutions. This additive integrates with the lead oxide plate structure significantly increasing surface area. These “micro-sponges” trap the acid electrolyte and slow its release during charging. By reducing the rate of electrolyte outflow, the acid density gradient is minimized. Hammond was awarded the
2021 BCI Innovation Awardfor this technology.
ArcActive has re-engineered the negative electrode of the Lead Battery to remove the Lead Grid and replace it with a non-woven Carbon Fibre Fabric (AACarbonTM). The benefit of this innovation is that it solves the number one technical challenge facing the industry (as identified by the CBI): achieving high and sustained Dynamic Charge Acceptance while delivering very low Water Consumption.
An active R&D initiative in the secondary lead industry has produced a new alloy, SUPERSOFT-HYCYCLE, enabling lead batteries to function at 2x current standards. Use of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory has helped verify this improvement. The alloy improves cycle life, dynamic charge acceptance and capacity.
Gridtential Energy’s breakthrough Silicon Joule® battery architecture combines the traditional benefits of lead-acid batteries – low cost, recyclability, and safety – with a novel bipolar battery architecture. As demand in high-power applications increases across industries, Gridtential’s technology delivers the high dynamic charge acceptance (DCA) required to meet these evolving performance needs.
NorthStar Battery Company was honored with the 2017 BCI Innovation award for its Advanced Connected Energy mobile app in the second-ever presentation of this prestigious award for the energy storage industry.
In the first-ever BCI Innovation Award competition, Hammond won the inaugural award for its advances in lead (PbA) battery chemistry.
About the BCI Innovation Award – Since 2016, the BCI Innovation Award has recognized innovations within the battery industry that align with the guidelines of sustainability, safety, cost, performance, uniqueness and value. Learn more about the Innovation Award.
BCI has long supported industry driven innovation. Their efforts to bring together multiple organizations to drive fundamental research in a precompetitive manner has helped put us on the radar as both an industry and as individual companies.
