The lion’s share of new funding announced this week to help scale-up potentially disruptive technologies by the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) of the US government Department of Energy (DOE) will go to battery and smart grid technologies.

Let’s take a look at the news stories that had the most page views on the site since the beginning of 2020. The list covers everything from always-in-focus topics of cost reduction and competitiveness, to fire safety, innovation and commercialisation of new technologies and, of course in this year, COVID-19.

‘Liquid metal’ battery technology developed as a potential low-cost competitor for lithium-ion looks set to be used at a data centre under development near Reno, Nevada.

With dozens of massive new lithium-ion battery factories planned or already under construction in Europe, Panasonic and Equinor are investigating the potential for a “green battery business” in Norway.

Kyocera has officially launched a residential energy storage system using an advanced manufacturing process that supplier 24M claims can reduce some of the key costs of lithium battery making by as much as 50%.

24M, spun out of an MIT laboratory, claims its latest semi-solid battery ‘breakthrough’, Dual Electrolyte technology, heralds a new era to come for advanced lithium batteries. Andy Colthorpe spoke to some of the company’s leadership team to find out more.

24M, a start-up angling to disrupt the already-disruptive lithium-ion battery industry with the design and production of semi-solid lithium cells, has raised US$21.8 million in a Series D funding round.