Glendale-based Johnson Controls today announced a new partnership with the University of Wisconsin- Madison.
Johnson Controls will donate a new laboratory to the university’s Wisconsin Energy Institute. The donation “includes state-of-the-art battery testing technology, which will allow students, faculty and engineers to study and optimize energy storage systems,” the company said in a press release. “The research will enable manufactures to build systems that utilize battery power more efficiently.”
The lab will be called the Johnson Controls Advanced Systems Test Lab, and will support research focused on vehicular and stationary energy.
“This partnership will help advance the energy storage industry by expanding the reach of our university research partnerships,” said Christian Rosenkranz, vice president of advanced products for Johnson Controls Power Solutions. “With the help of the UW-Madison, Johnson Controls will test cutting-edge energy storage concepts while training a new generation of engineers.”
The partnership will team industry scientists with UW professors, graduate students and undergraduate students.
“We deeply appreciate Johnson Controls’ generosity in making this suite of battery test equipment available to faculty, students, and other researchers at UW-Madison,” said Mike Corradini, director of the Wisconsin Energy Institute. “The availability of this valuable new resource represents a significant milestone in our pursuit of integrated clean energy systems and cutting-edge storage technology at the university.”
The UW-Madison partnership complements Johnson Controls’ existing partnership with UW-Milwaukee, the company said. At UW-Milwaukee, Johnson Controls scientists are working with university research staff and students to develop new energy storage materials. The partnership enables students there to expand their knowledge in a test lab on campus. Once cells are clustered into energy storage solutions in the form of battery modules or systems, those systems can be tested at the new UW-Madison lab. The tests conducted at UW-Madison could come as part of the engineering development phase or final product testing phase. The lab will be equipped to test batteries both inside and outside of a vehicle.
