Natalie Popovich, a dark-haired person wearing a colorful button up shirt, smiles against a tree. The sun obscured behind smokey skies over a blue building. Birdseye view of downtown Auckland, New Zealand. Side of building. Group of scientists using a Hot Disk for Thermal Measuring. Closeup of snowy roof with icicles. Panoramic view of San Francisco skyline at sunrise. Nan Zhou, a person with medium-length dark brown hair wearing a gray jacket over a black top and a gold necklace. Photographed outdoors, against blurred greenery outdoors.

Nan Zhou has been leading many international programs on energy efficiency and greenhouse gas mitigation, often focused on emerging economies. Her expertise includes integrated energy system and emission modeling, energy efficiency for end use sectors in buildings, appliances, industry and transport; microgrids/distributed energy resources; and low carbon/smart city development.

 Joseph (Joe) Rand, a person with short brown hair and a beard wearing a navy collared top. Photographed outdoors against hills with green foliage.

Joseph (Joe) Rand is an energy policy researcher in Berkeley Lab's Electricity Markets and Policy Group. He conducts research and analysis on renewable energy, including: renewable energy policy, cost, and market analysis; spatial data analysis; and research related to social impacts, interconnection, and deployment barriers of renewable energy.

 Amol Phadke, a person with short black hair wearing a white and blue striped collared top. Photographed indoors against a dark gray backdrop.

Amol Phadke is a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Electricity Markets and Policy Group and an affiliate and senior scientist at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. His work focuses on the electrification of heavy duty vehicles, grid scale storage, and deep decarbonization of the power and transport sectors.

 Illustration of a train connected to a city via a power grid. Natalie Popovich, a dark-haired person wearing a colorful button up shirt, smiles against a tree.

New research points to a flexible, cost-effective option for backup power when trouble strikes: batteries aboard trains. A study from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) finds that rail-based mobile energy storage is a feasible way to ensure reliability during exceptional events.

Berkeley Lab Research Scientist Sean Lubner is studying materials that can help better store renewable energy to power large-scale systems.

Berkeley Lab scientists discuss how advances in energy storage can help us prevent extreme weather-related blackouts, adopt more renewable energy, and build bigger, better, more environmentally responsible batteries.

 A wind farm on the north shore of Oahu, operated by the Hawaiian Electric Company. Griffith Park brush wildfire and the Woolsey fire in California. Digital illustration of the world outlined in green against a dark background, with various renewable energy icons and numbers floating around. Evening view of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, with downtown San Francisco in the background.. Oil refinery at night. View of highway at sunrise with a semi coming toward the viewer.