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Martyn1981

Nice article looking at the progress of sodium ion batts. Got to admit, they've caught me out a bit, I thought progress would be a bit slower, till cost benefits could kick in at scale, but that seems to be happening already.

Not as energy dense as LFP, but cheaper, so ideal for stationary batts, and better tolerance of cold weather.

PV panels are already becoming a semi-trivial cost in the deployment of PV systems. I wonder if the batts will follow this trend in 5yrs or so, regarding total storage system deployment costs.

The Strange Time Compression of Sodium-Ion Battery Development

If you are not aware of Chinese battery technical leadership, it is probably time to take notice. As of 2025, CATL and BYD have over 50% of the world’s EV battery market share. From January to September, they accounted for 811.7 GWh. CATL and BYD are not the only battery companies in China. In total, China EV battery production hit 1,122 GWh over the same period, up 44% from the previous year.

While the two giants have specialized in LFP and NMC batteries, relatively small Beijing HiNa concentrated on sodium-ion batteries (SIB) used in JAC cars and in other areas, including utility storage. 

HiNa’s inroads have made waves and reverberated throughout the industry. Competition is strong. Sodium-ion batteries have been under development for many years, with a field of competitors globally. HiNa was founded in 2017, and produced sodium-ion batteries from its GWh class factory since November 29, 2022. What is interesting here is that HiNa seems to be lighting a fire under the competitors. HiNa introduced sodium-ion to the utility storage market, providing product for the world’s largest sodium-ion storage system (a 100 MWh system) in Nanning, Hubei, in July of 2024, the first stage of a planned 200 MWh system.

The natural progression of battery developments is that at first, only one of a few chemistries can meet application demands, then after the first chemistry does so, later on other lower cost, lower performance chemistries continually advance until they meet minimum requirements. When that happens, the leading chemistry moves up to a higher cost tier with more stringent applications.

This has happened several times before in EVs, with NCA replaced by NMC, and NMC now by LFP, each supplanting the other at lower costs as the newer entrants advance, meet threshold requirements, and get closer to theoretical performance. While lithium has been dominant for more than a decade, advancements in other chemistries have been expected for many years, with pressure on for lower costs, better low-temperature performance, and safety. Because of the nature of development and application needs at threshold requirements, advancements tend to go unnoticed until threshold requirements are reached. So it was with solar as well, where for many years, it was always too expensive. Then suddenly it wasn’t. It quickly passed parity with fossil fuel generation, and only hydro is cheaper now. The pace in battery chemistry advancements appears slower than semiconductors or solar, but it is steady, and with the level of volume and capital involved now, the necessary investment in research is now producing fruit.