News

Held in early March, the 2026 Energy Storage Symposium convened researchers and professionals to connect emerging and maturing energy storage technologies with today’s electricity needs and use cases. Researchers funded by the energy storage program played a key role in organizing and contributing to the event.   Energy storage offers an additional, versatile tool to help stabilize, optimize, and grow the… Read More

As energy storage technologies can strengthen and enhance grid infrastructure and services, state decisionmakers face the complex challenge of crafting effective policies to integrate these innovations into their grids. On Feb. 24-26, Sandia’s Will McNamara led a three-day tutorial in partnership with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions (NARUC), titled “Designing State-Level Regulations for Energy Storage.”  This professional development course brought together over 100 participants—such as commissioners, staff,… Read More

Flow batteries hold promise to reliably store energy for longer periods of time and at a scale and cost useful for the electrical grid. Flow batteries are designed for large-scale energy storage applications, but transitioning from lab-scale systems to practical deployments presents significant challenges. Sandia’s Will McNamara recently addressed the Battery Council International’s Flow Battery Industry Group, outlining key emerging technological trends for the flow battery sector. He emphasized… Read More

At the Gordon Research Conference on Batteries on February 17, 2026, Loraine Torres-Castro of Sandia National Laboratories delivered an invited talk titled “Rethinking Battery Safety with Strategies for Early Risk Mitigation.” Her presentation highlighted innovative, proactive approaches to identify and address battery safety risks during early design stages—shifting the focus from reactive failure response to prevention.  As battery technologies… Read More

Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories, Loraine Torres-Castro, Nathan Johnson, and Alex Bates, filed a patent application titled “Method for Scaled Thermal Evaluation of Batteries and Related Materials.” The application (No. 19/416,660) was filed on December 11, 2025. The invention introduces a methodology for evaluating the thermal behavior and safety characteristics of batteries and related materials across different scales.  Thermal… Read More

Loraine Torres-Castro, a battery safety researcher at Sandia National Laboratories, presented a keynote talk titled “Large-Scale Testing and Mitigation Strategies for Thermal Runaway in Battery Energy Storage Systems” at the American Chemical Society 2026 Spring Meeting. The presentation took place as part of the Innovations in Heat Resistant Materials and Fire Safety symposium (Division of Polymeric Materials… Read More

On March 26, Sandia researcher Oindrilla Dutta presented at an industry session at the 41st IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC). The presentation focused on grid-forming battery systems. These systems can provide significant benefits to the grid by mitigating transients, enabling black start, offering fault ride through, and supplying uninterrupted power to critical… Read More

Research to enable advanced battery data analytics using multi-modal AI agents was recognized as among the six best posters at the AI x Energy Summit. Sandia’s Sel Ly presented the poster titled, “Multi-modal AI-Agents for advanced battery data analytics” at the summit, held in San Diego, CA, USA on March 19-20, 2026. The research was… Read More