Sodium-ion battery news from the US and China

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We’re so used to hearing the term “lithium-ion” when it comes to batteries that we forget that there are other ways to store electricity, such as sodium-ion battery cells that don’t use lithium at all. Despite its widespread use in batteries, lithium has several drawbacks. Its price can fluctuate wildly, making it difficult for consumers to know what lithium-ion batteries will cost in the future. But there’s more to it than that. Extracting lithium can environmental and social damageThen there's the fact that China has taken control of much of the world's lithium supply chain, making it harder for battery manufacturers outside China to control their supply chains.

Sodium has none of these drawbacks. It is abundant, available everywhere in the world, and cheap. Sodium-ion batteries do not perform as well as the best lithium-ion batteries, but they do have some advantages over their lithium-based cousins. Their performance does not degrade as much as lithium-ion batteries in cold temperatures, and they have a greatly reduced risk of fire. That makes them almost ideal for grid-scale electricity storage systems where space constraints are few. Sodium-ion battery technology is at the beginning of the development curve and is about where lithium-ion technology was a decade ago.

In reality, Energy cinema in China has adopted the evolving sodium battery technology and applied it to battery storage in a planned 100MW/200MWh project in Hubei Province, China. In a statement on August 6, 2024, the company said the first phase of that project, which has 50MW/100MWh of battery storage, has been successfully connected to the grid and started commercial operations.

The installation consists of 42 BESS containers with 185 Ah sodium-ion batteries, 21 power conversion units and a 110 kV booster station. Sineng’s 2.5 MW string turnkey solution is specifically designed to connect to the system’s wide DC voltage range of 700 V to 1500 V. With cluster-level energy management, Sineng’s solution enhances the cluster-level balancing capability of sodium-ion batteries. Furthermore, the string PCS units are designed to ensure durability under extreme temperatures and high humidity.

Natron sodium-ion battery plant in North Carolina

According to AxiosNatron Energy, a California-based battery startup that makes sodium-ion batteries, plans to invest $1.4 billion in a manufacturing plant in Edgecombe County near Rocky Mount, North Carolina, after agreeing to a large incentive package with the state this week. Natron would bring a significant investment to the Kingsboro Business Park, a location where economic developers have been searching for a tenant since a Chinese tire maker called Triangle Tire canceled plans for a factory there due to tariffs.

Natron is expected to create 1,062 jobs in Edgecombe County between 2028 and 2032, the N.C. Department of Commerce said. The positions would have a minimum average wage of $64,071. The company said it will build a 1.2 million-square-foot facility at the business park that will use only domestic supplies. If it meets hiring and investment goals, Natron would be eligible for more than $50 million in incentives from the state’s Job Development Investment Grant and the Megasite Readiness Program. Local incentives would add another $130 million, the Commerce Department said.

Natron, which has another plant in Michigan, is attractive to investors because its sodium-ion battery technology has lower costs and simpler supply chains compared to lithium. Axios said. The company's customers include large industrial users such as data centers and oil drillers. The North Carolina plant would be significantly larger than the existing Michigan plant, and would produce 24 gigawatts of sodium-ion batteries annually, compared to Michigan's 600 megawatts.

The Michigan plant began producing sodium batteries in April of this year. According to my colleague Tina CaseyThe Natron plant is a former lithium-ion battery factory that has been converted. Initially, the new plant will address the explosive growth in energy storage needs of data centers. In particular, Natron expects that the equally explosive growth of AI technology will drive increased demand for energy storage and 24/7 power in data centers in the US.

In September 2020, the company received a $19.9 million award from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E office for high-risk, high-reward project financing, with the goal of establishing the new plant. “The project aims to scale up production of Natron Energy’s Prussian blue electrode sodium ion batteries by a factor of 30 to 18,000 trays per year, and fully de-risk the resulting supply chain and products through continuous production and sales for six months,” ARPA-E explained.

The DOE also noted that the company's 8 kW, 50-volt battery tray is primarily designed to manage peak loads in data centers and provide emergency powerbut also targeting emerging markets such as EV fast charging and grid-scale storage. “Natron's tray offers data center operators up to 2x higher power density and 10x longer cycle life than existing products, along with superior safety performance,” ARPA-E said. Axios noted that Natron would need to raise more private capital to build the new North Carolina plant, but it already has some major backers, including ABB Technology Ventures, NanoDimension CapitalAnd Volta Energy Technologies.

The Department of Energy has helped innovators in sodium energy storage. Last October, ARPA-E awarded $3,198,085 to Massachusetts company 24M Technologies to develop a new sodium-ion battery specifically for electric vehicles. “24M’s cell design will feature (1) its ultra-thick SemiSolid cathode made from an advanced cobalt-free, nickel-free sodium cathode active material, (2) an advanced wide-temperature, fast-charging electrolyte developed using machine learning and automated high-throughput screening technology, and (3) a sodium superionic conductor,” ARPA-E explained at the time.

In research, the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory has built on its experience with lithium-ion batteries to develop new solutions for a roadworthy sodium-ion battery. The close “chemical relationship” between sodium and lithium offers a helping hand for battery research. “Sodium is just below lithium in the periodic table of elements, which means their chemical behaviors are very similar,” Physics magazine recently explained. “That chemical similarity allows sodium-ion batteries to 'piggyback' on lithium-ion batteries in terms of design and manufacturing techniques,” it said. Longtime energy storage researcher Jean-Marie Tarascon of the College of France was even more forthright. “Sodium-ion technology is actually a clone of lithium-ion technology,” he told Physics magazine.

The takeaway meal

Battery technology is still young — less than 20 years old in terms of commercial production. As we’ve said many times, the batteries of the future are still in the lab phase. Our grandchildren will be amazed that we ever used lithium for batteries, just as we were amazed when our grandparents told us that radios and TVs had tubes that needed to warm up.

Batteries are the key to an all-electric future, and an all-electric future will depend on newer, cheaper, higher-density batteries with faster charge times. We need those batteries today, but unfortunately, innovation isn’t something you can command. It happens on its own schedule. Patience, grasshopper.