7. Battery and Energy Supply and Storage Technology Frontier

Given the ever-increasing number of stakeholders in the battery and energy supply and storage (ESS) area of technological progress, questions arise, such as who and what comprises the frontier of technological innovation and development? Is it market-determined, policy-determined, or some combination thereof? Is the frontier being configured by national comparative advantages that have emerged over time, or have we entered a neo-industrial policy era to promote manufacturing competitiveness? Which industries are most active in the area of groundbreaking technological progress? This chapter configures the frontier of this technology by research area and location and by the type of technology being developed and its market application, including the critical testing and manufacturing scale-up phase of the research and development (R&D) process. The “development–application trajectory” of viable, new technology is a central albeit often neglected part of the market development process. The industries for which battery and energy supply and storage technologies (B|ESST) are being developed are wide-ranging and increasingly scalable to a number of applications. Such cross-industry utility promises speedier and more effective market efforts to mitigate environmental risk through the development and application of B|ESST.