Scientists have uncovered a root cause of the growth of needle-like structures—known as dendrites and whiskers—that plague lithium batteries, sometimes causing a short circuit, failure, or even a fire.

With support from DOE’s Office of Electricity and National Grid, PNNL led a groundbreaking study to accurately assess the full value of grid energy storage investments across a wide variety of use cases.

PNNL researchers have created a chemical cocktail that could help electric cars power their way through extreme temperatures where current lithium-ion batteries don’t operate as efficiently as needed.

Energy storage is slowly shifting utility planning practices from the current paradigm, which ensures grid reliability by building reserve generation resources, to ensuring grid reliability by optimizing grid services.

PNNL researchers demonstrate how the excitation of oxygen atoms that contributes to better performance of a lithium-ion battery also triggers a process that leads to damage, explaining a phenomenon that has been a mystery to scientists.

Researchers at PNNL used key metrics to develop visualizations that show how the combined effects of climate change on hydropower and load influence the frequency, duration, and severity of power shortfalls.

While some of us may periodically ponder the universe, most of us don't dedicate our lives to studying its mysteries, including its birth, evolution and fate.

DOE gives go ahead for SuperCDMS — one of the world's most sensitive dark matter experiments.

Scientists detect phenomenon in lab that occurs during neutron star formation and supernovae explosions.

To study some of the tiniest particles in the universe, an international band of physicists is building a massive instrument to look for signs of particles predicted to be fundamental to the workings of the universe.

The search for dark matter called spin-dependent WIMPS is on — in an underground lab in Canada

Here at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, much of our physics research focuses on fundamental scientific discovery and national security.