Meet Ed Thomsen, senior materials scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Meet Ed Thomsen, senior materials scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) where he leads testing for large-scale batteries at the Grid Storage Launchpad (GSL), a research and development facility located on PNNL’s campus in Richland, WA that is dedicated to accelerating innovation and validation of batteries and energy storage technologies.
Thomsen has over 25 years of experience conducting electrochemical research and designing and building instruments to measure electrical, ionic, and mechanical properties of solid-state ion conducting materials.
He has coauthored more than 50 publications, including journal articles, conference proceedings, formal reports, and book chapters. In his role at the GSL, Thomsen is focused on accelerating the testing and validation of next-generation energy storage technologies to support a reliable, affordable, and secure electrical grid. BCI caught up with him to discuss his journey into this field, the opportunities ahead for lead battery research, and the role of testing and validation in accelerating grid deployment.
Question #1: You earned a BS in mechanical engineering and have gone on to build over 24 years of deep expertise in electrochemical research. What inspired your shift from mechanical engineering, and were there early projects, mentors, or moments that sparked your interest in battery research?
I like to say I got here mostly by luck. Right out of high school, I spent a few years driving and working on pit crews for stock cars in regional NASCAR. It was fun work, but eventually I decided it was time to go back to school and mechanical engineering felt like the right fit.
During my first year of college, I spotted a posting for internship opportunities. I signed up without really knowing it was for PNNL, until months later when I got a call from Greg Coffey who was looking for some help in the lab. I was hired on as an intern and a few weeks later started working on lithium polymer batteries.
That opportunity opened the door to projects on automotive sensors, then fuel cells, and eventually the battery testing and development work I do today. I haven’t ended up using my mechanical engineering coursework as much as I expected, but I’ve had the privilege of learning materials science and electrochemistry from some incredibly smart people over the years. A lot of them have retired, but many are still around. I wouldn’t be where I am today without their guidance.
Question #2: Now that the GSL is open for testing of large-scale batteries, which performance metrics do you think utilities and grid operators should prioritize when evaluating long term battery storage systems?
At the GSL, our job is to validate how battery energy storage systems actually perform under real‑world grid duty cycles. We focus on things like cycling performance, charge–discharge efficiency, and how the system degrades over time.
At the end of the day, the most important metrics for any grid‑deployed asset come down to three things: reliability, affordability, and safety. If a battery system can consistently deliver power when it’s needed, do so cost‑effectively, and meet strict safety expectations, then it’s meeting the bar utilities and grid operators should care most about. We encourage commercial battery manufacturers to apply to test their grid-scale energy storage technologies at our facilities to see how their technologies perform against these metrics.
Question #3: How has access to industry samples and real world data from the Consortium for Lead Battery Leadership improved the impact of your lead acid battery research?
We’ve worked with lead batteries in our lab before, but partnering with industry has helped us understand much more about what’s needed to make lead‑acid batteries work better for long‑duration grid applications.
As the project moves forward, I’m confident we’re on track to meet our goals to enable lead acid batteries to be a critical part of the U.S. power grid.
Question #4: As AI and automated testing advance, how do you see industry partners, test infrastructure, and AI driven analysis working together at PNNL to speed up developing and validating next generation grid scale lead acid batteries?
Machine learning is becoming more powerful at predicting battery performance and lifespan. For grid applications, where an asset may need to operate for around 20 years, it’s simply not practical to run tests for that long during development. By combining machine learning with data from industry partners, we can build a digital twin that helps us forecast how a battery will perform and degrade over time. This approach lets us accelerate development while still gaining confidence in real‑world reliability.
Question #5: What would it take to move lead-acid battery chemistries into wider commercial consideration for grid storage applications?
To make lead batteries a more widely considered option for grid use, we need to overcome the perception that they have a short cycle life. Lead batteries actually bring a lot of strengths to the table: they’re affordable, manufactured in the U.S., supported by a robust domestic supply chain, fully recyclable, and safe to operate. If we can pair those advantages with solid data showing that these systems are reliable and built to last, lead batteries can be a very competitive choice for grid-scale storage.
