Sodium-ion batteries approach cost parity with LFP

145 pointsposted 5 hours ago
by doener
(pv-magazine.com)

66 Comments

syntaxing

5 hours ago

I’m so desperate for home battery using sodium batteries. Safer and lower temperature it can operate at. Low energy density but I don’t care for home battery.

rootusrootus

4 hours ago

I want to have viable replacements for all the old school lithium ion battery packs so that I won't wonder when the day will come that one of the many we have will experience thermal runaway while nobody is around to deal with it. IMO a world where we no longer worry about spontaneous battery fires can't happen soon enough.

numpad0

an hour ago

Battery voltages are dependent on chemistry, or, standard electrode potentials of metals used. It can't be configured like way past fractions of volts. And Li has about the highest potential among metals, which is kind of the point of using Li. Which means straight swapping NMC cells with any substitute will cause overcharging. Maybe there are cell configurations that could work in series packs, but it can't be simple swap-ins.

marcosdumay

44 minutes ago

There will probably never be a battery that can power your home but can be used without any kind of worry.

The right thing is to place the battery in a way that you don't have to worry abut the fire, not to expect a high-density battery to be perfectly safe.

adrianN

37 minutes ago

A tank of diesel and a generator are a kind of battery that you have to worry about very little.

ricardobeat

2 hours ago

Standard sodium batteries are much more explosive than LiFE

nine_k

an hour ago

Can they experience a thermal runaway? Can it be triggered by minor deformations or dents?

ricardobeat

37 minutes ago

https://youtu.be/W1ya_ls1zkA?t=209

CATL has demonstrated much better safety for their sodium EV batteries, but home and energy storage packs are more likely to be made of standard 18650 cells like the one in the video.

margalabargala

5 hours ago

There is an aqueous variant of sodium ion batteries that are safer than lithium, but most sodium ion batteries are NOT that variant and are more dangerous than LiFePO4.

syntaxing

4 hours ago

Wait what? All data I see about sodium ion is safer than LFP. I’m by no means an expert and would love to see why it’s the other way around

margalabargala

4 hours ago

It's definitely not that cut and dry. Here's a paper with a good breakdown of safety comparisons: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352152X2...

Tldr: while sodium thermal runaways are less dangerous than lithium, they are more likely to happen, and in particular charging a sodium battery to 100% SOC makes thermal runaway significantly more likely than in LFP batteries.

It's true that things like puncture or short circuit are much much less dangerous than with lithium. That is a big part of why the increased thermal runaway risk gets overlooked.

DannyBee

4 hours ago

Agreed.

The main thing about LFP is people (stupidly) shove them in a basement or enclosed space because they are "safe".

But the "safe" part is that they outgas hydrogen when in thermal runaway, which, combined with enclosed spaces like basements (where people often have gas heaters or ....), is .... a super super bad idea.

Ironically, in this situation, sodium-ion is worse than LFP in almost every conceivable way - the gas is more flammable, toxic, etc.

People who think sodium-ion is "safer" are being sold a bill of goods.

WarmWash

3 hours ago

There is also the possibility of releasing hydrogen cyanide during a runaway event for some variants too

UncleOxidant

4 hours ago

Sodium batteries will only continue to get cheaper. Cost parity now, but probably closer to 1/2 the price in a few years as production ramps up.

MarsZebra

an hour ago

Aren't sodium higher density (at least in terms of energy per weight) than LiFe?

Maybe you're right in terms of energy per volume. Sodium are very light weight in my experience.

SubiculumCode

26 minutes ago

yeah, I am waiting to replace my home battery for the safer sodium option whenever it becomes possible. I keep hoping.

maxnevermind

4 hours ago

I thought the main advantage in comparison with LFP is the lower price(long term) and better sub-zero performance?

syntaxing

4 hours ago

Nope. Almost all batteries I see for LFP have heaters for them at too low temps (around freezing 0C/32F). Where as sodium ion can discharge at -25C

benjiro29

4 hours ago

Discharging is not the issue with LiPo4 or other lithium tech. They can work up to negative temperatures without any issue. They can go down to -20°C (-4°F).

The problem is charging the battery at negative, as this damages the internal structure. So you need to heat up the battery (aka, you discharge by warming up heating elements), until you hit the right point. And then you can charge up, what will create heat and thus allow for non-damaging charging.

Some even have a fun trick, where if your going to a EV station with your car (end point route on your build in sat nav). They can start to pre-drain the battery if its really too cold, to warm up the batteries even more. So by the time your at the charger, the batteries are on temperature. I forgot what brand did it that way, seen that feature years ago.

What is different is that Sodium-Ion batteries can charge from negative (i think it was -10°C), as they do not suffer from the same damaging effect.

martinald

3 hours ago

Nearly all EVs now do "battery preconditioning" when on the way to a charger. They would be pretty unusable without, I know one person had a model that didn't have it (this was a few years back) and he could barely pull more than 10kW in winter from public chargers, vs 100kW+ in summer at the exact same chargers.

dwattttt

4 hours ago

Tesla do this if they know they're navigating to a charger.

pfdietz

4 hours ago

There's a yttrium-containing variety of LFP that's supposed to work better at lower temperature (down to -45 C). But yttrium itself is quite expensive ($35/kg).

rcxdude

4 hours ago

lithium batteries can usually discharge below 0C, it's the charging at sub-zero temperatures that kills them.

lazide

3 hours ago

Lithium can discharge just fine at -25C without heaters.

Charging it at or around 0C will destroy it extremely rapidly due to electroplating of lithium.

UqWBcuFx6NV4r

2 hours ago

Honestly, yes, re energy density. I hadn’t seen home batteries in-person until a couple of years ago. I was surprised by how small they could actually be (still with a decent capacity). I’d totally trade some of that for chemistry with a less… catastrophic failure mode, and I don’t even have a big house, even for non-US standards.

Not speaking one way or the other on sodium ion’s properties specifically. I see from sibling comments that it’s not straightforward.

toomuchtodo

5 hours ago

Are you in the US?

syntaxing

4 hours ago

Yup

toomuchtodo

3 hours ago

I’m hopeful that sodium batteries are going to come down in cost quickly, but if you can find a provider like Base Power or similar where it’s heavily subsidized, there’s a small upfront fee, and they can provide you the economic benefits until sodium batteries reach favorable economic success criteria, that’s a shim until you can replace that with sodium batteries you own outright at a favorable price. You’d have to model what you can get today with a sodium chemistry versus what you can get on offer from one of these battery service providers.

It’s fundamentally a modeling exercise in the forward economic returns curve in the context of your energy needs. Lithium battery lease today as a power purchase agreement (potentially), and then swapping out for a purchased and owned sodium battery pack when the cost hits the right price. It’s always harder to predict the future the further out you attempt to predict, and this technology state of the art is moving very rapidly.

hbarka

3 hours ago

I switched the 12v lead-acid batteries on my EV to the 12v Lithium from OHMMU. Best upgrade I've done. I recently saw that they now offer 12V Sodium, and their warranty now went up to 3 years on the sodium, from 1 year. They have new data on its robustness.

dearsiary7

3 hours ago

Why? What do you notice? I was told the 12v fail in a few years and it will be swapped out at the 3rd year service and every few years there after for about $100. I will probably never see it as it three big bolts under the passenger seats that I have no interest spending my Saturday removing. What does this upgrade get you?

Byd dolphin, Thailand prices for above

imoverclocked

an hour ago

I did this with a Polaris Ranger EV that had 8x12v Lead Acid in a 2x4 configuration that produces 48V. Instead of going with more 12V batteries, I switched to two 48v BigBattery LiFePO4. In doing so, I dropped the weight by about 600-700 lbs. I use it in very hilly terrain so that weight makes a huge difference to me.

Additionally, the original batteries were not sealed and required maintenance. Each battery has two ports which need to be filled individually. On top of those ports are supports/braces and wires in an already inconvenient space.

I'm so happy to not have to deal with refilling those batteries anymore. That alone made the conversion worth it to me. Also, lead-acid doesn't necessarily last longer. The new (LiFePO4) batteries have lasted about as long already and (knock on wood) seem to be doing fine. Maybe it's because I don't have to top them off with distilled water?

hbarka

3 hours ago

> three big bolts under the passenger seats that I have no interest spending my Saturday removing.

I’m not familiar with BYD but yes you need some mechanical aptitude to change the 12v battery yourself.

Premature failure of 12V lead-acid batteries remains a persistent complaint among EV owners and is a recurring frustration. Just go to any EV forum. The traction battery will not top it off either when parked for extended periods.

Lithium batteries generally tolerate periods of inactivity better than lead-acid batteries. The OHMMU batteries are also “smart enabled”, see their website.

saidinesh5

2 hours ago

My guess: With all the telemetry and processing that continues to happen in modern cars, if you leave an EV parked for a longer time, the 12V battery will be discharged faster.

So having higher capacity 12V at the same size and only slightly more expensive might help?

topspin

an hour ago

That was fast. CATL is only now ramping up Naxtra production and it's already approaching price parity with LFP. This is early validation of the cost curve predictions for this chemistry.

Most of this is destined for stationary storage that would likely have used lithium-based chemistry instead, or not been built-out at all. Every GWh of capacity sodium offsets is a GWh that isn't supplied by lithium, so demand for higher-value battery chemistry should be lower, and take prices with it. Good news all around.

KellyCriterion

4 hours ago

Just imagine:

ALL the money that flew into "Fossil & Co" throughout the last, lets say, 50 or 60 years, including all implicit fundings, like state-building-streets or universities-masters-engineering-focus-ICE, all the money for lobbying, all the money for all the (counter)campaigns (from ALL sides), and all that money....

...WHAT IF we would have spent all of this money instead on Battery Research and all this Renewable Energy stuff?

Where would we be today on techdev curve? ;-) ;-)

eugenekay

4 hours ago

We would probably be dramatically farther behind in the Materials Research conducted by the chemical companies underlying the fossil fuels industry, which has itself been necessary to the improvements in battery & semiconductor technologies we are now enjoying. Polyimides don’t invent themselves!

“What If?” history is fun, but there are always Tradeoffs.

KellyCriterion

3 hours ago

So, Material Science research progress wouldnt have been possible without burning all the stuff for decades in all types of combustion engines? :-D

eugenekay

2 hours ago

Where do you think the fancy metallurgy for a modern combustion engine came from?

actionfromafar

3 hours ago

Is the oil industry the secret benefactor of more breakthroughs? That’s some steelmanning.

eugenekay

3 hours ago

You have it entirely backwards: Oil is refined to create feedstock chemicals for everything from beauty creams to jet engine ceramics to lithography intermediates to hydrogenated oils and decaffeinated coffee. It is these new and inventive uses which have continuously increased demand for the raw resources and driven research.

logicallee

4 hours ago

Hard to imagine being farther behind than a static page with no services.

chubs

4 hours ago

I'd love to see a 'manhattan project' to get off of oil, in any way possible eg batteries or algae-produced diesel, whatever works, for geopolitical purposes.

shrubble

4 hours ago

This was the original mission of the Department of Energy…

contingencies

4 hours ago

In a very concrete way China has basically been running it. It's given us EVs, a massive PV cost reduction, cheap hydropower, cheap wind power, lots of battery cost reductions, and perhaps even enhanced competitiveness in the nuclear market. Also modern high speed rail which is readily fueled by non-ICE methods.

rpmisms

3 hours ago

Algae diesel would be amazing.

dnautics

3 hours ago

Honestly not really. Insolation energy is not that high, and photosynthesis tops out at around 10% under best conditions, and that's energy out the end of photosystem (solar cells are pushing 30% and perovskite might go to 40 or 50%), so doesn't take into account inefficiency in your sugar (much less hydrocarbon) conversio. The care and feeding of algae is annoying, they grow really slowly so contamination is a constant problem, and they self-shade, so the suface area to volume of growth conditions must be high. And a high surface area means awful evap problems... The list goes on

d_silin

3 hours ago

Exactly the same as today.

Ungodly amount of money was spent on battery research since 1945, at least $100-150B since 2000 alone. Every combination of anode, cathode and electrolyte was tried, tested and evaluated. We got silver-zinc, Ni-Cd, NiMH and finally Li-Ion batteries as the result.

GuB-42

3 hours ago

We would have inefficient and polluting engines, leaded gasoline, steam engines burning coal, no high performance plastics, and probably more even wars around oil and gas and slower economy leading to less resource to fund battery research...

I mean, batteries and solar panels are cool, but thinking about the future doesn't mean we should forget the present. The advance we could have gotten by diverting funding away from fossil fuels and towards renewables and batteries is to balance with the damage caused by using outdated fossil fuel technology before the transition.

Cities are breathable now thanks to all the progresses modern engines have made. They will be even more breathable with zero emission cars, but I prefer to wait a bit more in these conditions than waiting a bit less in a smog filled city.

KellyCriterion

3 hours ago

So progress is in burning fossils because otherwise we cant >get it<?

GuB-42

2 hours ago

Progress is in doing more work with less impact. Burning fossils more efficiently and burning less of them because we have an alternative are both progress.

cyberax

4 hours ago

We might have shaven off ~10 years from the current timeline.

Batteries are only a part of the equation. Practical EVs were enabled not just by Li-ion batteries but by IGBTs. And semiconductor development moved about as fast as possible.

And then there's a gulf between lead-acid batteries and Li-ions. I think only NiMH batteries would have been a reasonable midpoint, and even they would have been impractical for full EVs.

dzhiurgis

an hour ago

> approximately $200/kWh for LFP batteries

Huh?

Automotive grade are like 50 and storage ones are like 30.

Can someone confirm these prices because sounds a whole lot of BS or article not saying something (i.e. dancing around TCO).

dopa42365

12 minutes ago

Likely includes the whole system (pack, BMS, inverter, cabinet, installation) rather than only the cells. In any case, sodium will take a few years until the scale is large enough to offer any cost advantage over fairly optimized and cheap LFP these days.

allears

5 hours ago

"error establishing a database connection"

LeFantome

5 hours ago

Sodium powered data center

cyberax

4 hours ago

You sound a bit salty.

EwanToo

4 hours ago

Alternative site which is still up

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/11/06/sodium-ion-batteries-...

akamaka

3 hours ago

I think submitted article isn’t from a legitimate news source. The overall headline about what CATL said about cost parity is valid, but someone ran an LLM over the original source and embellished it into a long article with a bunch of made up numbers.