I've been watching this space for some time, and seeing this sort of commercial production (even as a pilot) is very encouraging. We see a lot of reports of new stuff, a lot of which doesn't make it to market.
The price of the battery (compared to the price of Lithium) is not mention, nor is relative size (and weight). However, once in production it's expected to be cheaper to produce, albeit requiring more space / weight per Kwh.
So it may not replace car batteries, but for residential or grid-based solutions it should move the needle.
Personally I'd love a cheap 100Kwh battery at home, and I don't care about size or weight...
> With a total investment of over CNY 460 million ($63.8 million) and occupying 34,000 square metres, the Baochi plant is designed for an installed capacity of 200MW/400MWh.
If import tariffs can shift the price in favor of sodium-ion batteries that would be a great win, as sodium-ion batteries are much greener (extracting lithium is a very environment-damaging process) and free of slave labor (to extract rare earth materials like lithium).
Great news for storing excess power generated by renewables, unfortunately the US is headed in another direction currently - but maybe at least some states still listen to reason, or they will be able to find international customers/partners?
Actually, when reading the ad at the end of the article ("The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act.") I was surprised that Trump didn't cancel this retroactively, as he did with lots of other measures decided by the Biden administration...
I've been watching this space for some time, and seeing this sort of commercial production (even as a pilot) is very encouraging. We see a lot of reports of new stuff, a lot of which doesn't make it to market.
The price of the battery (compared to the price of Lithium) is not mention, nor is relative size (and weight). However, once in production it's expected to be cheaper to produce, albeit requiring more space / weight per Kwh.
So it may not replace car batteries, but for residential or grid-based solutions it should move the needle. Personally I'd love a cheap 100Kwh battery at home, and I don't care about size or weight...
China’s implementation has some pricing info.
https://www.ess-news.com/2025/06/03/china-launches-worlds-fi...
> With a total investment of over CNY 460 million ($63.8 million) and occupying 34,000 square metres, the Baochi plant is designed for an installed capacity of 200MW/400MWh.
According to napkin math, that makes the cost of this battery $63800000/400000kwh = $159.5/kWh.
According to this report, li batteries are $115/kwh: https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/03/a-2025-update-on-ut...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44513185
LFP is ~$52/kWh.
Economies of scale haven't even begun to kick in for sodium batteries.
Is this with labor included?They also state in the article that this is the hybrid system which contains Lithium and Sodium batteries
> li batteries are $115/kwh
With or without import tariffs ?
If import tariffs can shift the price in favor of sodium-ion batteries that would be a great win, as sodium-ion batteries are much greener (extracting lithium is a very environment-damaging process) and free of slave labor (to extract rare earth materials like lithium).
Lithium is not rare, nor is it a "rare earth" (which are not rare either).
I would gladly trade added weight for reduced fire risk in this kind of application...
Great news for storing excess power generated by renewables, unfortunately the US is headed in another direction currently - but maybe at least some states still listen to reason, or they will be able to find international customers/partners?
Actually, when reading the ad at the end of the article ("The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act.") I was surprised that Trump didn't cancel this retroactively, as he did with lots of other measures decided by the Biden administration...
Of course "states rights", "states should be able to self-determine their direction on everything"...except renewables.