Course Details
This course is designed and led by two preeminent Stanford University faculty members: Abbas El Gamal, Hitachi America Professor in the School of Engineering, recipient of the 2016 Richard W. Hamming Medal and 2012 Claude E. Shannon Award, whose research spans network information theory, FPGAs, and smart grid systems; and Ram Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, founder and director of the Stanford Sustainable Systems Lab, a leading expert in large-scale sensing, stochastic control, and sustainable infrastructure networks.
Core Course Mission
Driven by the urgent global challenge of climate change, this course fills a critical gap in engineering education. Transportation and electricity generation are the leading sources of fossil fuel carbon emissions, and high-capacity battery systems are the foundational technology enabling mass EV adoption and the integration of variable wind and solar energy onto the grid. While existing Stanford courses offer deep dives into narrow, siloed aspects of battery technology (e.g., materials science, electrochemistry), this is the only course that takes a holistic, cross-disciplinary, systems-oriented approach to battery systems — linking cell-level design to real-world performance, safety, economics, and end-use applications in both automotive and grid settings.
Unique Course Structure
This course blends the structure of a traditional engineering lecture class with the breadth of a research seminar, built for both academic and professional learners:
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Streamlined, progressive curriculum: Content moves sequentially from battery fundamentals, to system-level design considerations, to real-world transportation and grid applications.
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World-class guest lecturers: The course features 15+ experts across academia (5 additional Stanford professors, 2 external university faculty), U.S. national labs (NREL, SANDIA), and industry leaders (Tesla, Waymo, EVGo, EPRI, and battery design specialists).
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Flexible enrollment options:
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1-unit, credit/no-credit seminar: Requires only a basic engineering background, with no project requirement.
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3-unit, letter-graded course: Includes all lecture content plus a hands-on project, with prerequisites tailored to the student’s project focus (e.g., materials science background for electrochemistry projects).
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Hands-on learning resources: Students gain access to real-world data from Stanford’s Powernet lab test beds (residential home and farm deployments), with project opportunities to work with state-of-the-art battery systems and grid coordination algorithms.
Target Audience
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Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students in engineering, materials science, and related technical fields
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Industry professionals: battery design engineers, power systems engineers, EV and grid storage product developers, and utility operators
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Policy experts, economists, and sustainability leaders seeking a practical understanding of battery technology capabilities and limitations
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Cross-disciplinary innovators working on climate tech, smart grids, and electrified transportation
Core Curriculum Modules
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Battery System Fundamentals: Cell materials and chemistry, cell packaging, series/parallel module design, power electronics, and battery management systems (BMS)
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System-Level Design Considerations: Battery modeling, degradation and aging, thermal management, safety, and engineering economics
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Real-World Applications: Electric vehicle (EV) battery design, fast charging grid impacts, second-life battery reuse, grid-scale storage use cases, and renewable energy integration
