World’s first commercial sodium-ion battery production line goes live

Unexpected announcement came today from the state-owned company China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG). Its HiNa Battery GWh-scale production line in Fuyang, in Anhui province, just went live and the world's first commercial sodium-ion batteries became a reality.

HiNa Battery has been founded to specifically focus on production of the sodium-ion batteries and is supported both by the CTG and Fuyang city government. The company actually released its first sodium-ion battery back in 2017 and it owns as many as 30 patents in that field.

Sodium-ion batteries bring potentially huge cost saving for large-scale energy storage solutions. HiNa Battery’s production line currently has a capacity of just 1 GWh, but work is already underway to increase it to 5 GWh.

Batteries manufactured by HiNa have an energy density of 145 Wh/kg and can endure 4,500 cycles. The next stage aims at 8,000 to 10,000 cycles and up to 200 Wh/kg energy density, according to the company.

CATL unveiled its own sodium-ion battery back in 2021 with an energy density of 160 Wh/kg and its next generation battery cell is supposed to exceed 200 Wh/kg. The company is planning to begin commercialization of its product from next year.

BYD has more solid plans when it comes to its own sodium batteries, the company has been reported that it is to start manufacturing of the new sodium-ion cells in the second quarter of next year. Later the company went on to deny those reports.

Another report surfaced later, claiming that BYD Seagull will be the first car to feature the new battery chemistry. The report reiterated the time scale with the vehicle scheduled to launch around the second quarter of 2023. BYD did not deny that report - at least not yet.

There is a huge push from the battery industry for lithium equivalents. Sodium seems like a natural choice, it is easier to mine and process and as a result it is significantly cheaper. The technology is improving at a very fast pace and sodium-ion batteries are no longer considered a pie-in-the-sky but a viable solution for large scale deployment.

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