Berkeley Lab’s world-class scientific expertise and unique technical capabilities provide powerful tools for innovation in advanced manufacturing. We’re also adapting how we do business to be more responsive to private sector needs. We conduct non-classified research in a wide range of areas that can help your company be more competitive in the global marketplace.
Grid and Energy Storage Solutions – CalCharge™
Intelligent Energy Efficiency — FLEXLAB ™
Biomanufacturing – Berkeley Open Biofoundry (BOB)
High-Performance Materials Development
Advanced Computing, Modeling, and Simulation
State-of-the-Art User Facilities
How Berkeley Lab Helps Industry
Grid and Energy Storage Solutions
Berkeley Lab is working to advance batteries and fuel cells, microgrids, smart grids, and demand response systems with the goal of enabling renewable energy at $1 per watt. We work in material processing, high speed metrology, computer modeling, and testing.
CalCharge™ is a groundbreaking public-private partnership working to accelerate the development, commercialization, and adoption of new energy storage technologies.
The Demand Response Research Center conducts research and provides user tools to advance demand response within smart grid infrastructures.
The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) is a major research partnership that integrates government, academic, and industrial researchers to create breakthrough energy storage technologies.
National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is one of the largest non-classified computational facilities in the world, and is a leader in accelerating scientific discovery through high performance computation. Over 5,000 public and private sector scientists use NERSC to build better batteries, semiconductors, thermovoltaics, and more.
Intelligent Energy Efficiency
Information technology is taking energy efficiency to the next level, where solutions are dynamic, holistic, and system-wide. As pioneers in the field, we have the experts, technologies, and software tools to solve complex energy challenges.
FLEXLAB ™ is the world’s first test bed for high efficiency, integrated building systems. FLEXLAB™ helps industry stakeholders adopt energy management innovation, integrate new technologies, and reduce deployment-related risk.
The Industrial Energy Research Group advances energy efficiency through developing energy management, efficiency and demand management standards, analysis, and technologies. We also have a suite of Tools, Guides, and Software for building modeling and simulation.
The Commercial Building Systems Group promotes the design, construction, and operation of energy efficient commercial buildings through applied R & D, deployment strategies, and integrated, whole-building approaches.
Biomanufacturing
Berkeley Lab aims to be a leader in producing a wide variety of molecules including fuels, chemicals, novel materials and new therapeutics through biological design and machine learning. The Lab’s leadership in this area includes synthetic biology, the Systems Biology Knowledgebase, lignocellulosic-based biofuels and chemicals, and resources such as the Joint Genome Institute.
The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), one of three DOE Bioenergy Research Centers, is accelerating fundamental research breakthroughs for the development of advanced, next-generation biofuels. JBEI also works with companies to develop bio-based chemicals.
The Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit (ABPDU) is a state-of-the-art facility for testing, developing, and scaling up emergent bio-based fuel and chemical technologies.
The Berkeley Open Biofoundry (BOB) is a Berkeley Lab proposal to DARPA for a new biological design user facility that will produce molecules not routinely synthesized biologically or chemically and greatly reduce the time and cost of biological production.
The Joint Genome Institute (JGI) advances high-throughput genomic sequencing and analysis in support of clean energy generation and environmental characterization and cleanup.
High-Performance Materials Development and Characterization
Berkeley Lab has world-class capabilities for producing, characterizing, and accelerating the development of high-performance materials.
The Advanced Light Source (ALS) is one of the world’s brightest sources of ultraviolet and soft x-ray beams. It aids industry through analysis and characterization of materials, yields insight into chemical reaction dynamics, and is a key tool for rational drug discovery, semiconductor manufacturing, and much more.
The Molecular Foundry is a DOE nanoscience facility that provides users with access to cutting-edge expertise and instrumentation for nanoscale design and fabrication.
The Materials Project accelerates the discovery and use of novel materials by computing properties of all known materials in an easy-to-use open source database.
The Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) is the nation’s largest research program developing artificial solar-fuel generation technology.
Advanced Computing, Modeling, and Simulation
We have decades of expertise in the application of high performance computing to complex problems in fields as diverse as chemical reactions, electrical grid simulations, and bio-synthesis, among others.
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is one of the largest non-classified computational facilities in the world and is a leader in accelerating scientific discovery through high performance computation.
The Energy Sciences Network (ESNET) is a high-performance, non-classified national network supporting scientific research. ESnet actively seeks R & D collaborations to create smarter, more energy-efficient networks.
The Materials Project accelerates the discovery and use of novel materials by computing properties of all known materials in an easy-to-use open source database.
Energy efficiency Tools, Guides, and Software are available to model and improve whole-building and building-component energy efficiency.
Fabrication and Manufacturing
Berkeley Lab has fabrication facilities on the nano, micro, and meter scale and can produce unique precision tools.
An extensive inventory of Nanofabrication Capabilities & Tools is available to users of the Molecular Foundry Nanofabrication facility.
Our Engineering, Fabrication and Technology resources have been leveraged to build world-class scientific instrumentation.
The Center for X-Ray Optics (CXRO) furthers science and technology using short wavelength optical systems and techniques and has worked extensively with the semiconductor manufacturing industry.
See additional resources under Biomanufacturing.
State-of-the-Art User Facilities
We offer User Facilities with state-of-the-art equipment and staff scientists to assist with project design and implementation. These facilities are open to industry, and in cases where the user is willing to share the results, the Department of Energy usually covers the full cost.
How Berkeley Lab Helps Industry
Partnering with Berkeley Lab feeds product pipelines and accelerates innovation-to-market. Explore opportunities for collaboration of any type by contacting us at Partners@lbl.gov. Together we can solve the most critical challenges of the day.
- We have pioneered streamlined new models for public-private partnerships, such as CalCharge™, to be more responsive to industry needs.
- We offer a One-Stop-Shop to interface with the Lab.
- We collaborate on R&D projects to accomplish together more than we could independently.
- We can perform work for your company on a specific project.
- We offer User Facilities with state-of-the-art equipment and staff scientists who assist with project design and implementation.
- We often seek government and non-profit funding in tandem with industry partners.
- We build Strategic Partnerships with companies that want to engage with Berkeley Lab on multiple projects and use master agreements to reduce paperwork.
- We license Berkeley Lab Inventions – We’ve launched 37 startup companies, scores of new products, and game-changing product development processes.
- We offer seamless knowledge transfer and training to embedded industry researchers.
- We engage extensively in informal collaboration. Many projects begin with informal researcher-to-researcher collaboration and grow from there.
Contact us at Partners@lbl.gov to discuss your interest.
Last updated: 04/16/2014