Donning a Colorado flag-themed face mask and safety glasses, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, toured Solid Power in Louisville on Friday to learn how the startup hopes to power electric vehicles sustainably.
Started at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2014, Solid Power creates rechargeable batteries and has ongoing development agreements with both Ford and BMW to create solid-state batteries for electric cars. Solid-state batteries replace the liquid electrolyte in a conventional lithium-ion battery with an ion-conducting material.
Bennet listened to Solid Power executives, scientists and engineers about how the company would benefit from federal policies and toured the company’s research facility and manufacturing line.
“This is a homegrown enterprise. It started at CU (Boulder,) and now they’ve rolled it out and they’re fighting a battle which is going to be really important for the United States to win,” Bennet told the Daily Camera. “The battle to power electric vehicles with a sustainable battery.”
In July, Bennet joined an amicus brief filed in support of state authority to implement stronger clean car standards, a news release from Bennet’s office stated. In 2019, Bennet cosponsored the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act and in 2018, he introduced and passed the Energy Storage for Rural America Act, which allow energy storage, including batteries, to quality for grants and loan guarantees.
“Next-generation battery technology will play a crucial role in the adoption of electric vehicles,” Dave Jensen, president of Solid Power, said in the release. “Supporting the transition to an electrified future is key to competing on a global scale, while also helping to enable a sustainable clean energy economy.”
Bennet said it was important to hear from Solid Power executives first-hand.
“The reason I’m here is to get a feel for what they’re doing, and give them the chance — which they did — to tell me why it’s important for us to have a policy environment that’s more conducive to investments in the kind of technology they’re doing,” Bennet said.
“What that really comes down to is having a set of policy choices that pushes in the direction of the electric vehicles and away from the more traditional.”