Image: Southern electricity grid
By ESS news
Any technology seeking to compete with lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) faces the challenge of rapidly declining costs for this already ubiquitous technology. While LIBs continue to expand their market dominance, sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are still waiting for their moment to shine.
However, a new study led by researchers from Finland’s LUT University shows that although SIBs have not yet achieved widespread market acceptance, their cells are already costing almost equivalent to LIBs.
“Sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) have not yet been fully deployed for electric vehicle applications, as energy density remains a limiting factor. Although SIBs are already cost-competitive with lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), their gravimetric energy density still lags behind. This gap can be closed once solid-state SIBs enter the market,” says Dominik Keiner, junior researchers at the LUT School of Energy Systems. ESS news.
However, the first commercial utility-scale battery energy storage facilities are now being built and deployed, including projects at the scale of 100 MWh. “This shows that SIBs are on the cusp of entering the market at full scale. Once supply chains are established and economies of scale take effect, there is nothing to prevent sodium ion batteries from completely taking over the market, provided existing LIB lock-ins are manageable,” he says.
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