Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is Quietly Revolutionizing the Energy System

A Series of Battery Storage Systems (Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Georgia Tech's solar car team drives innovation

GT Solar Car (Credit: 11Alive News)
US’ Georgia Tech, Stryten Energy tap lead battery innovation

Stryten Energy's Lead Battery Energy Storage System Installed at the Georgia Tech Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Building
Catalyzing Commercialization: Eliminating End-of-Life Plastics by Mechanochemical Recycling

The high impact between the metal balls in a ball mill reactor and the polymer surface is sufficient to momentarily liquefy the polymer and facilitate chemical reactions. Image created with DALL•E
In the March issue of CEP , Georgia Tech researchers’ work, supported by NSF, is highlighted in tackling the pressing issue of plastics accumulating in landfills and in the environment. Carsten Sievers partnered with PIs Fani Boukouvala, Chris Jones and Sankar Nair, as well as graduate students Elisavet Angelou, George Chang, Van Son Nguyen, Anu Osibo, Andrew Tricker, Meghan Yutthasaksunthorn and postdoctoral research Kinga Golabek.
Catalyzing Commercialization: Eliminating End-of-Life Plastics by Mechanochemical Recycling
In the March issue of CEP , Georgia Tech researchers’ work, supported by NSF, is highlighted in tackling the pressing issue of plastics accumulating in landfills and in the environment.
Researchers tore down Tesla's and BYD's batteries

A Tesla battery pack contains hundreds of cylindrical nickel-manganese-cobalt cells. Credit: Getty Images
Today’s electric vehicles (EVs) mainly use batteries with cathodes made of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) or lithium iron phosphate (LFP). Tesla and BYD, the world’s largest EV companies, have each adopted one of these chemistries. Chinese carmaker BYD uses LFP batteries, and Tesla chose NMC.
To determine how the two rivals’ batteries stack up against each other, a team of engineers and materials scientists in Germany took apart one cell from each company’s battery pack, which contain dozens of cells (Cell Rep. Phys. Sci. 2025, DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2025.102453). The cells’ materials and designs held some surprises.
EV makers guard battery technology tightly. But engineering firms regularly disassemble batteries to peek at their innards. Battery engineers Jonas Gorsch and Moritz Frieges of RWTH Aachen University and their colleagues took a scientific sledgehammer to Tesla and BYD battery cells and did a detailed side-by-side analysis of materials composition, thermal and electrical performance, and mechanical design. “Most teardowns focus on some specific aspect,” Gorsch says. “We wanted a holistic comparison.”
This is the type of research that “helps researchers keep abreast of what’s happening commercially so they can target their early-stage R&D decisions appropriately,” says Micah S. Ziegler, who studies energy technology innovation at the Georgia Institute of Technology and was not involved in the work.