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Johnson Controls touts 'Midwest play' to build batteries of future

- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -

November 30, 2012 - Illinois may be the host of the new $120 million energy research hub announced Friday, but the inclusion of Wisconsin's largest company and the University of Michigan makes it "a Midwest play,” said MaryAnn Wright, vice president at Johnson Controls Inc.

 

The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research will receive $120 million in funding over five years for Argonne National Laboratory, other energy labs, universities and Johnson Controls.

 

Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Friday announced the award during an appearance near Chicago at the Argonne headquarters in Lemont, Ill. The goal: to bring together energy storage research that's taking place in different spots and help to bring the best technologies to market quickly.

 

“The beautiful thing of this is this a Midwest play,” Wright added, noting that though the research hub is centered at Argonne, it includes Johnson Controls in Wisconsin as well as the auto industry researchers at the University of Michigan.

 

The aim: to make the Midwest known not just for the design of and production of cars and trucks but to be a nexus for key technology research and development for a new generation of vehicles.

 

“We were very deeply involved in the writing of the proposal both from a technical standpoint as well as helping to articulate the goals and objectives of the hub, from the standpoint of the right technology commercialized as quickly as possible,” Wright said.

 

The goal of the joint center, is to deliver a much better battery within five years, she said.

 

“We call it the 5-5-5,” Wright said. “Five times the energy density at a fifth of the cost, inside of five years.”

 

Breakthroughs such as these will enable more electric vehicles to hit the road, and help the auto industry comply with the Obama administration’s aggressive gas mileage standards – proposals that aim to curb emissions of greenhouse gases from vehicles’ tailpipes.

 

Johnson Controls is the world’s leading supplier of car batteries, and has been a partner with the Obama administration in an industry effort to build up an advanced battery industry to compete with China and South Korea.

 

The company received a $299 million federal stimulus investment, which it matched, to open a lithium ion battery factory in Holland, Mich., and to expand its research lab in Glendale that analyzes and tests novel chemistries for batteries.

 

Wright has been working at Johnson Controls for five years. Before that, she led a team that designed the first hybrid vehicle for Ford Motor Co., the Escape. She also sits on the board of directors of the Illinois-based Argonne national energy lab.

 

The company will be able to use its advanced battery factory in Michigan to help test and scale up manufacturing for new technologies developed through the research partnership, she said.

 

In the quest to build electric vehicles that don’t carry a hefty premium compared with the EVs on the road today, experts say the key challenge is bringing down the cost of the batteries that power the cars.

 

As a result, chemists and engineers are looking to deploy new and lighter materials that pack more energy in a small space.

 

The inclusion of Johnson Controls is likely to mean more research at the company’s Glendale battery lab, as well as the labs the company has paid to open at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and UW-Madison, Wright said.

 

Friday’s announcement is also expected to help the company and the two universities as they attempt to recruit a Johnson Controls-endowed energy storage professor at UW-Milwaukee and Madison.

 

The two UW institutions are not partners in the new energy storage hub itself but are partners with Johnson Controls.

 

View the article from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel >>

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