April 10-11
The main purposes of the workshop are (1) for the industry, zinc miners, zinc processers,
battery material suppliers, zinc battery producers and zinc recyclers, to discuss
the supply chain issues for zinc batteries; (2) to identify the data and resource
gaps of the supply chain; and (3) for industries to interact with federal government
and discuss how both sides can help and work with each other to ensure the supply
chain security as we are working to develop and deploy the technology.
Location: AERB 120
Agenda
Day 1 – April 10, 2024
- Welcome & Opening Remarks from organizers.
- DOE talk on program overview.
- Upstream session (mining, processing)
- Battery raw material session
- Battery producers/developers
- Recycling session
- Lunch Break & Networking
- Breakout sessions to formulate high level summary of needs.
- IZA sponsored dinner.
Day 2 – April 11, 2024
- Welcome & Opening Remarks
- Keynote talk Eric Hsieh, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Storage
- Present finding from industry day by breakout session leaders
- Group discussion.
- Closing remarks.
Keynote Speaker - Eric Hsieh
Eric Hsieh is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Storage in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity (OE), where he leads efforts to accelerate the next generation of energy storage technologies that deliver reliability, resilience, economic, and efficiency benefits. Mr. Hsieh also co-chairs the crosscutting Energy Storage Grand Challenge, which coordinates departmental priorities such as the Long-Duration Storage Energy Earthshot. He is an energy policy, financial, and engineering thought leader with nearly 20 years of experience in improving energy delivery through innovation. Prior to his current role, Mr. Hsieh was the Director of Grid Components and Systems within OE.
As Director of Grid Components and Systems, Mr. Hsieh led strategy development and execution for grid hardware innovations including power conversion, energy storage, and robotics. He has more than 10 years of federal service, having also been the Director of the Office of Finance and Incentive Analysis, where he applied geospatial and computational techniques to modernize utility industry analysis.
Over the course of his professional career, Mr. Hsieh has held executive positions with several industry-leading firms and government associations. Before joining DOE, Mr. Hsieh was the Director of Business and Market Development at Nexans/The Valley Group, a global power transmission solutions provider, where he led worldwide efforts to deploy dynamic line rating technologies. Prior to that, at A123 Systems, a developer and manufacturer of advanced batteries for the electric grid, he helped the company reach its first 100 MW of deployed grid-connected battery storage. He has also held roles at National Electrical Manufacturers Association and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Mr. Hsieh authored and co-authored pieces published in journals such as IEEE Electrification Magazine, Electricity Journal, and ElectroIndustry; as well as delivering presentations at respected industry-leading conferences across the country. In 2019, Mr. Hsieh was named one of “Fortnightly’s Under 40” as part of Public Utilities Fortnightly’s “next generation of up-and-comers in the utilities industry.” Mr. Hsieh holds a master’s in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering (with a concentration in AI) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Organizers
Prof. Dr. Xingbo Liu, FASM, FACerS
Associate Dean for Research, Statler Endowed Chair of Engineering
Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources
West Virginia University
Dr. Liu began his professional career at WVU as a Postdoctoral Researcher in 2000 and joined the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering as a faculty member in 2002. He became a full Professor in August 2014 and was appointed as Statler Endowed Chair of Engineering in 2018. Liu also served as the Associate Chair for Research within the Department from 2012 to 2019.
He has received several honors from the scientific community and the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at WVU. Among these include: the R&D 100 Award (2011), Innovator of the Year from TechConnect WV (2013), TMS Brimacombe Medalist (2016) from the Mineral, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), TMS Early Career Faculty Fellow Award (2010) from TMS, WVU Statler College Outstanding Researcher (2007-2009, 2011, 2015), and WVU Statler College Researcher of the Year (2011, 2015). He is a Fellow of both ASM International and American Ceramics Society.
Dr. Vincent Sprenkle
Sr. Technical Advisor
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory – PNNL
Dr. Vincent Sprenkle joined PNNL in January 2001 and is a Senior Technical Advisor for Energy Storage. He is currently supporting the US Department of Energy – Office of Electricity R&D activities focused on the development of novel, low-cost electrochemical energy storage technologies, improved safety, and reliability of grid scale storage, and understanding the value and use of grid scale storage. From 2014-2018, he served as Technical Group Manager for the Electrochemical Materials and Systems Group at PNNL. Dr. Sprenkle has been active in electrochemical technologies for 25 years and currently holds 23 US patents on fuel cells, batteries, and high temperature electrochemical devices with 22 pending patent applications. He was name PNNL Inventor of the Year in 2014 and Distinguished Inventor of Battelle in 2017. He has been recognized as key contributor on 4 licensing activities while at PNNL, received a 2009 FLC award for Technology Transfer of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Technology to Delphi Corporation, and was awarded the 2017 Green Chemistry Challenge Award from US. EPA with UniEnergy Technologies.
Dr. Josef Daniel-Ivad
Manager, Zinc Battery Initiative
International Zinc Association
Josef is currently managing the Zinc Battery Initiative for the International Zinc Association. He has over 30 years of zinc battery technology and development experience, in both primary and rechargeable batteries, where he brought concepts from the R&D bench to fully automated commercial production scale, implementing the ‘lab to fab’ concept. He held executive leadership positions with various household battery companies and is now running his own consultancy company in batteries and energy storage.
Dr. Daniel-Ivad holds a Ph.D. in Electrochemistry and a M.Sc. in Technical Chemistry from the Technical University of Graz, Austria.