14/11/2023
Here's a great article by Energy Post highlighting the rapid forecasted growth in sodium ion battery manufacturing capacity. Here are some key takeaways:
The cost of a sodium-ion battery cells is expected to be around $40-80/kWh compared to an average of $120/kWh for a -ion cell, when produced at large scale.
Production capacity is forecast to grow from 42 GWh/year in 2023 to 186 GWh/year by 2030: enough to power 4.6m EVs per year.
Sodium is about a thousand times more abundant than lithium, which means that this technology could potentially alleviate supply concerns related to Li-ion batteries.
Sodium-ion batteries have shown promising results, having wider operating temperature ranges and a more stable anode-electrolyte mixture than Li-ion batteries. In terms of performance, sodium-ion batteries have excellent capacity retention even in freezing temperatures, fast charging times and longer cycle lives than lithium batteries.
The low cost, long life, safety and performance characteristics of sodium-ion batteries, together with the fact that size and weight are less important for stationary applications makes them an attractive alternative to Li-ion. Additionally, sodium-ion batteries could find applications in short-range EVs.
Read the article here:
Sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries, a much more abundant and cheaper alternative to the standard Lithium-ion, are on the verge of commercialisation, explain Carlos Ruiz, Martina Lyons, Isaac Elizondo Garcia and Zhaoyu Wu at IRENA. Though thereās enough Lithium in the world to support global electrifica...
