For decades, American research labs have pioneered breakthrough battery chemistry, advances in energy density, and next-generation manufacturing processes. Yet, despite this world-class innovation in the lab, relatively few of these technologies have ultimately become commercially manufactured products in the United States.
Closing this gap will allow the US to capture more of the economic benefits of the clean energy transition while strengthening a power system facing rising electricity demand. The rapid deployment of battery storage is expanding the grid’s ability to store electricity when it is abundant and deliver it when needed, including by shifting solar output from midday to evening peak-demand periods.
Batteries can also respond rapidly to short-term imbalances that could otherwise threaten reliability. Beyond the power sector, they underpin transportation electrification as the essential component of electric vehicles. As battery deployment grows across both sectors, developing the capacity to manufacture these technologies domestically will become increasingly important to US economic competitiveness.
But leaders from across the battery ecosystem have identified a major hurdle for promising battery technologies to reach large-scale production. Despite different strategies, there remains a “missing middle” in the US commercialization ecosystem.
Defining The Missing Middle
Earlier this year, C2ES released an Innovation Policy Matrix that defined the “missing middle” as “the gap between early-stage research and development (R&D), where public funding predominates, and the later stages of the innovation process, where private capital typically steps in.”
Rather than facing a single “valley of death,” battery technologies must cross several distinct commercialization barriers as they move from laboratory research to pilot production, customer testing, and ultimately commercial manufacturing. A certain technology can successfully clear one stage and still fail at the next.
Rechargeable battery technologies used in electric vehicles and short-duration stationary storage face daunting circumstances when scaling from laboratory materials and prototype cells to reliable commercial production. Advancing these technologies from the laboratory to commercial production is a series of transitional challenges rather than a single gap before attracting large-scale investment. One potential solution to overcoming several of these transitions is the creation of shared commercialization infrastructure.
Shared Commercialization Infrastructure to Bridge the Innovation Process
“Shared commercialization infrastructure” refers to facilities that provide specialized manufacturing capabilities that individual startups and material companies normally cannot build on their own. These facilities reduce commercialization risk by providing access to equipment and expertise to test manufacturing processes before investing in commercial-scale production. This model is already beginning to emerge across the Southeast US.
- The Carolina Institute for Battery Innovation (CIBI) at the University of South Carolina is developing pilot-scale manufacturing capabilities for certain battery cells, allowing researchers and industry partners to optimize manufacturing processes and validate new materials and cell designs before mass production.
- Georgia Tech’s Advanced Battery Center (GTABC) is building a technology translation facility where external users and industry partners can build, test, and validate emerging battery technologies at commercially relevant scales, bridging university R&D and industrial manufacturing.
- The Alabama Mobility and Power (AMP) Center at the University of Alabama is a public-private commercialization and workforce hub that combines applied research and pilot-scale validation with battery manufacturing, power and grid integration, workforce training, and industry collaboration across the broader mobility and energy ecosystem.
Together, these facilities represent an important step toward building the commercialization capacity needed for the Southeast’s growing battery industry.
Supporting Manufacturing Readiness
A recurring challenge in battery commercialization is proving not only that a technology works in the laboratory, but that it can be manufactured consistently through repeatable processes with consistent quality. Shared commercialization infrastructure allows companies to refine manufacturing processes before committing commercial-scale investments by supporting pilot production, qualification runs, and process engineering.
Building Manufacturing Expertise
Commercialization depends both on physical infrastructure and manufacturing expertise. Successful battery manufacturing relies heavily on the practical skills developed through operating production equipment, troubleshooting manufacturing challenges, and learning how processes behave differently at larger scales. Shared commercialization infrastructure serves as a training ground for engineers, technicians, and operators.
Strengthening Ecosystem Coordination
The greatest opportunity for shared commercialization infrastructure is the ability to connect organizations across the battery ecosystem. Battery leaders described commercialization as a series of handoffs between universities, startups, national laboratories, equipment manufacturers, suppliers, battery producers, investors, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), such as automakers and other companies that integrate batteries into final products. While each organization plays an important role, these handoffs are fragmented by a lack of shared facilities, expertise, and clear pathways for moving technologies between stages, which has slowed the commercialization process and increased risk. Shared commercialization infrastructure can help bridge these gaps by bringing these capabilities together in one environment.
Because commercialization risk accumulates across these transitions, the challenge is not simply getting a technology through one stage, but ensuring firms can access the capabilities needed to move between them. Shared commercialization infrastructure can help bridge these handoffs by providing manufacturing expertise, equipment, validation support, and other resources that reduce risk and make promising technologies more attractive to private investors and commercial partners.
Follow the C2ES Regional Clean Economies Initiative for more in-depth analysis on the the specific commercialization functions that shared infrastructure can provide, the limitations of the foundry model, and policy opportunities to strengthen the US battery manufacturing ecosystem.
