sodium battery (sodium battery) raw material cost is only 40% of that of lithium battery (sodium resource crust abundance 2.6% vs. Lithium 0.006%), and also does not need to rely on high-cost metals such as cobalt and nickel, reducing the cost of the energy storage system to 50/kWh (lithium battery 120/kWh). The 2023 single-watt-hour price of Ningde Times’ sodium battery is 37% lower than that of lithium iron phosphate, energy density can reach up to 160Wh/kg (comparable to 180Wh/kg of lithium iron phosphate), and the cycle life exceeds 4500 times (capacity retention rate ≥80%). After the application of sodium batteries in a 100MWh China energy storage power plant, the project cost reduced by 29%, the period of the investment cycle decreased from 8 years to 5.2 years, and the annual revenue increased by 23%.
Another core advantage is thermal safety: sodium battery thermal runaway temperature up to 300 ° C (lithium battery 150 ° C), in UL 1642 needle test will not ignite, don’t explode. Byd’s sodium battery pack launched in 2024 completed UL 9540A certification, the first sodium battery product globally to have entered the North American market. In the low-temperature condition, the discharge efficiency of the sodium battery -30℃ was also 92% (lithium battery only 65%), following a winter light storage project in Heilongjiang, system efficiency increased from 78% to 89%, and operation and maintenance cost reduced by 37%.
The capacity growth rate is astronomical: global sodium battery capacity rose from 3GWh in 2022 to 48GWh in 2024, compound annual growth rate of 320%. Zhongke Sodium also expects the cost of mass production to be driven to 40/kWh by 2025, lowering the kilowatt-hour cost of energy storage power station (LCOS) from 0.15/kWh to 0.09/kWh. According to EU Energy Agency estimates, when sodium battery market share is 3,042 billion, 120 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced.
Potential for diversified application validation:
Low speed electric vehicle: Yadi sodium battery electric bicycle range enhanced to 120km (lead acid battery 60km), charging time lowered from 8 hours to 1.5 hours, life of the battery enhanced to 8 years (lead acid battery 2 years);
Power grid frequency modulation: a 50MWh sodium battery energy storage power plant in Germany has a response speed of 98ms (lithium battery 70ms), the accuracy of frequency modulation is enhanced by 15%, and the annual revenue is increased by $1.2 million;
Severe environmental energy storage: In Xinjiang’s wind farm storage project, the failure rate of sodium batteries during sandstorms (PM10≥500μg/m³) is merely 0.3 times/year, 5 times lower than that of lithium batteries.
Double push of capital and policy: China’s “14th Five-Year Plan” new energy storage plan specially mentioned sodium batteries as one of the key technologies, 2023 industry subsidies of $420 million; The EU Horizon programme is investing €800 million in research and development. Gaogong lithium Power predicts that the global market share of sodium batteries will reach 12% in 2025 (< 1% in 2022), ranking second largest electrochemical energy storage technology. Although the current energy density (200Wh/kg) is 33% lower than terpolymer lithium (300Wh/kg), Toyota’s solid sodium battery lab samples have achieved 280Wh/kg and 12,000 cycle life, which will dominate the high-end electric vehicle market when produced.
With cost reduction, safety and sustainability being the most pressing requirements, sodium battery is driving quicker penetration from the laboratory to the market with a cost red line of $50/kWh, 4,500 cycle life and full climate flexibility of -30 ° C to 60 ° C. As Ningde Times Zeng Yuqun said: “Sodium battery is not a substitute, but the key to open the trillion energy storage market.”