EETD and CalCharge are Partners in new California Energy Commission-funded Northern California Advanced Vehicles Center

The California Energy Commission has funded a Northern California Alternative Transportation Fuel and Advanced Vehicle Technology Center (North CAT) to be based at the University of California, Berkeley. The Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is a partner, as is CalCharge, the public-private partnership between Berkeley Lab and the California Clean Energy Fund working to accelerate the development, commercialization, and adoption of new energy storage technologies. The consortium will receive more than $3 million to establish the North CAT Center.

“North CAT’s goal is to provide the up-to-date information and assistance that vehicle fleet managers, city planners, policymakers, and first-responders need to quickly and easily understand the costs, benefits, and implementation issues for latest new vehicle technologies,” said Tim Lipman, co-director of TSRC.

Anand Gopal, a researcher in EETD’s International Energy Studies Group will lead Berkeley Lab’s effort in Center, joined by Samveg Saxena of EETD’s Grid Integration Group, and Venkat Srinivasan, Head of EETD’s Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Department.

“Our role will be to lead the center’s efforts in technology related aspects of battery electric vehicles and their integration into the electricity grid,” says Gopal. “We’ll bring EETD’s considerable strengths in advanced energy storage technology development, vehicles-to-grid research, international transportation, and policy and market analysis to make the Center a success. We are also looking forward to expanding our activities with CalCharge in this Center.”