Powering the Naval Community, Naval Research Lab Holds Navy Battery Data Day
The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy (ODASN Energy) and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) co-hosted Navy Battery Data Day at NRL Headquarters in Washington, DC, on July 23. The collaborative event was designed to align the data needed to support battery-related decisions across the naval community – specifically focusing on data generation, documentation, sharing, and access – by identifying current challenges and readiness needs.
Batteries are critically important to Navy and Marine Corps lethality, survivability, endurance, and mission accomplishment. From unmanned systems to portable communications, they are ubiquitous throughout all domains and power the weapons systems, platforms, and installations of the Joint Force.
“Operational energy is the key enabler of our deployed forces,” said Jim Caley, director of Operational Energy for the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy. “By optimizing how we test, evaluate, and share data on battery technologies, we are directly enhancing the range, resilience, and lethality of our Joint Force in increasingly contested environments.”
In the modern battlespace, the reliability of a single power source can often dictate mission success or failure. Consider a Marine forward-deployed in an austere environment during an Expeditionary Advanced Base Operation, relying on a portable communication array to relay critical targeting coordinates back to the Fleet.
“Similarly, a Sailor at sea launching an unmanned underwater vehicle for mine countermeasures depends entirely on the endurance and safety of the vehicle's internal power cells,” Caley said. “When operators know their equipment will function reliably through extended operations without the immediate need for resupply, they can execute their mission planning with absolute confidence, ensuring peak readiness at the tactical edge.”
The necessary employment of batteries across the Navy and Marine Corps also comes with risks that must be managed across the Department of Navy (DON).
“Risks to our capabilities come from every part of the battery lifecycle, including supply chain, logistics, safety, and technology,” said Daphne Fuentevilla, Ph.D., from the Office of DASN Energy. “The scale of these risks, which are magnified by our reliance on batteries from the Indo-Pacific, requires a unified strategic plan for the entire DON.”
Participating organizations at Navy Battery Data Day included the Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center, Defense Logistics Agency, ODASN Energy, Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE) Marine Corps, U.S. Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office (E2O), Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Carderock Division, NSWC Crane Division, and the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.
To address the growing energy demands of the Fleet and larger naval community, leadership at the summit outlined a comprehensive strategy built around the DON Battery Strategy’s five primary Lines of Effort (LOEs): Alignment of Battery Investments to the Capability Evolution Plans; Lithium Battery Safety; Standardization; Technology Development; and Acquisition Policy.
To streamline the DON’s procurement and deployment of energy storage over the next decade, the battery community must secure the strategic enablers that underpin our primary lines of effort. While these enablers are not standalone metrics of success, any fragility or vulnerabilities within them introduces critical operational and strategic risks to our battery goals. The Strategic Enablers are: Infrastructure Modernization; Workforce Development; Analytics; and Coordination and Industry Partnership.
“To maintain our strategic advantage, we must treat energy storage as a critical capability rather than a simple commodity,” Fuentevilla said. “Events like Navy Battery Day are essential for breaking down institutional silos. By aligning our investments with future capability plans and modernizing our acquisition policies, we ensure the Fleet remains powered for whatever the mission requires.”
A major focal point of the working groups was the urgent need for standardization. Adopting common standards for batteries is critical to the future viability of battery-supported weapon systems and battery-based energy resilience systems across the DON. The DON must pursue standardization to ensure interoperability, reduce costs, reinforce safety, foster innovation, and facilitate supply chain security, sustainment, and logistics.
Matt Huffman, Expeditionary Power team lead at NSWC Carderock Division, highlighted how critical this data and standardization is for the Marine Corps, specifically pointing to the squad binocular night vision goggle (SBNVG) effort. By replacing disposable cells with a military-standard rechargeable alternative, the USMC demonstrated the strategic value of rigorous battery analysis.
"Although that solution has greater up-front cost, it provides significant cost savings in the long run," Huffman said. He emphasized that this initiative was one of the few examples where a Warfare Center was leveraged to conduct a load study. In a related USMC effort, one of the few battery energy supportability analyses was conducted, setting a valuable precedent for battery data collection and highlighting the need for some sort of centralized battery Energy Supportability Analysis, or ESA, process and repository.
“As we push the boundaries of energy density and performance, safety and standardization must evolve in tandem,” said Corey Love, Ph.D., Senior Science and Technology Manager for Power & Energy at NRL. “Pursuing standardized architectures not only reinforces lithium battery safety across the Fleet, but it also accelerates scientific innovation from our industry partners and promotes joint operability across the Services.”
The need for a coordinated, centralized approach resonated strongly among the attendees as they discussed how to break down the silos currently dividing energy research.
"Dr. Fontaine’s recommendation to resource and form a battery data IPT (Integrated Product Team) stuck with me," Huffman added. "We are largely a coalition of the willing, each working small segments of the battery challenge. Having an IPT to establish a coordinated approach to DON battery data has the potential to enhance how DON specifies and procures batteries."
The insights and data alignment strategies developed during Navy Battery Data Day will inform ongoing technology development and shape the future of operational energy policies across the naval community and greater Department of War.
“This is us closing the gap between high-tech battery chemistry and the raw reality of a Marine in the dirt to achieve superior tactical power,” Fuentevilla said.
These contested logistics technologies equip the naval community to overcome the challenges of disrupted or denied logistics to ensure seamless resupply and operational continuity in contested environments.
"In the modern fight,a lithium cell is just as lethal as a 5.56 round. We are asking our Marines to execute highly distributed operations at the absolute edge of the Earth, relying on silent, advanced technology,” Caley said. “If a rifle jams, they transition to a secondary weapon;if their batteries die, they are instantly blind, deaf, and cut off from the Fleet. A battery isn't a commodity on a logistics manifest anymore – it is the direct, life-sustaining oxygen line for our tactical network, and we have to treat the data behind it with the same reverence we do our live ammunition.”
About the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory NRL is a scientific and engineering command dedicated to research that drives innovative advances for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps from the seafloor to space and in the information domain. NRL is located in Washington, D.C. with major field sites in Stennis Space Center, Mississippi; Key West, Florida; Monterey, California.
NRL offers several mechanisms for collaborating with the broader scientific community, within and outside of the Federal government. These include Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs), LP-CRADAs, Educational Partnership Agreements, agreements under the authority of 10 USC 4892, licensing agreements, FAR contracts, and other applicable agreements.
For more information, contact NRL Corporate Communications at mailto:NRLPAO@us.navy.mil.
Legal Disclaimer:
EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
