We hear from industry sources about the significance of the CATL-HyperStrong sodium-ion BESS battery deal. Does it make a real turning point for the technology as an alternative to lithium-ion?
Energy-Storage.news was among the first to report the 60GWh sodium-ion battery supply deal between CATL, the world’s biggest battery company, and HyperStrong, China’s largest battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator.
Reaction from industry executives we’ve heard since then has been mostly positive. However, a few are sceptical of the economics of sodium-ion versus lithium iron phosphate (LFP) lithium-ion batteries, the dominant choice for BESS today.
They also sounded a note of caution on some of the claimed operating metrics of sodium-ion cells in BESS (see a deep-dive into those headline numbers in yesterday’s ESN Premium sodium-ion BESS cell product comparison feature).
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A ‘turning point’, ‘a threshold crossed’, ‘sodium-ion going mainstream’
Calvin Xu, China BESS market analyst for Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said that the deal shows that CATL will begin scaling up sodium-ion production lines from this year, marking a shift towards large-scale commercialisation. Taking into account various Chinese government policies, he said: “2026 could become a turning point for sodium-ion storage. We expect its market share to gradually expand in the coming years”.
Jerry Wan, founder and CEO of JLi Battery, a smaller China-based battery and BESS technology firm, told us: “This is not just an order, but the starting point for sodium batteries to officially move from ‘technology option’ to ‘mainstream energy storage configuration’.”
He also speculated about whether BESS and inverter firm Sungrow would be the next to sign such an agreement with CATL.
Similarly, Dylan Wang, project manager for another smaller China-based battery firm NGE, said on LinkedIn: “The sodium-ion era has officially arrived”.
The executive team of European sodium-ion BESS startup Moonwatt was, unsurprisingly, also upbeat on the news.
“This cell chemistry is now crossing the threshold from a promising technology to a scalable and bankable one, following a path that is reminiscent of how LFP once grew to dominate the market.
“At Moonwatt, we have been working to bring this maturity to European markets, with a focus on applications like solar co-location where sodium-ion’s thermal resilience and high cycle life are a genuine advantage. Europe needs its own answer to this shift, and that is precisely what we are building,” CCO Valentin Rota said.
Martin Ding, Americas president for HyperStrong, said in a repost of Energy-Storage.news’ article first covering the deal on LinkedIn: “This trend presents a potential challenge to LFP cell manufacturing, as a strong, and potentially more competitive technology is beginning to gain traction.”
System integrator: think about it at the system-level
Not all were as outwardly optimistic about the significance of the deal. Alejandro Schnakofsky, CTO of system integrator Prevalon Energy, has always been very outspoken with his views on the BESS industry (including the big challenges faced by companies like his own trying to compete with Chinese players), and the CATL-HyperStrong deal is no exception.
Speaking to Energy-Storage.news, he said: “Every time we see movement on the lithium carbonate price, NA-ion (sodium-ion) batteries are undusted into the forefront of the battery discussion. I don’t see NA-ion displacing LFP significantly in the near future due to energy density disadvantage and costs—today these cells are more expensive than LFP and it will take time and significant scale for their respective production costs to reach LFP levels or lower, materialising the promise of lower raw materials costs.”
Similarly, Dr. Kai-Philipp Kairies, CEO of analytics firm Accure Battery Intelligence, said on LinkedIn that LFP cells are now around US$40-50/kWh while industry data puts sodium-ion at around US$70/kWh.
And when discussing price, it is important to remember that battery materials are “not simply commodities” and they are part of a larger system, Schnakofsky continued.
“They are materials processed and engineered to a specification, the lower volume on NA-ion means separators, electrolytes, binding agents, etc. are being procured at significantly lower volumes versus LFP so their respective costs will be higher until volumes catch up. LCE prices have almost tripled summer 2025, however, they are stabilising—showing a more mature supply chain. In contrast the last time we had a spike of 8x … my point here is I am sceptical of the economics argument.”
As we explained in yesterday’s sodium-ion BESS cell roundup, sodium-ion has potential thanks to its lower theoretical cost because of abundant materials, better thermal operating and fire safety characteristics and deep discharge capabilities. But energy density is one area where it is far behind LFP, and this is a problem beyond just footprint, Schnakofsky explained.
“The energy density is about half meaning you will need 2x the number of containers at the project level (land, foundations, cabling, etc.).”
And sodium-ion is not completely removed from precious metals: “Like LFP, NA-ion still uses aluminium for its electrodes so it’s not like NA-ion is isolated from raw material cost volatility,” added Schnakofsky.
He also pointed out that sodium-ion still requires some cooling and can still go into thermal runaway. They are an improvement on lithium-ion, but not a silver bullet, he said.
Two applications where he sees sodium-ion as potentially competitive today are 4-hour+ applications where cooling isn’t needed (though he hasn’t seen a product deliver this) and sub-15-minute applications where only power is required.
Accure’s Kairies similarly said: “I would not bet on those exact (cost) numbers. What I would bet on is this: at 60GWh of guaranteed offtake, sodium-ion finally gets the manufacturing scale that makes its theoretical raw-material cost advantage real.”
Take operating metrics with ‘a grain of salt’
Arthur Claire, director of technology at quality assurance and factory inspection services provider Sinovoltaics, posting on LinkedIn, was sceptical of the operating temperature promise of sodium-ion of as low as -40°C.
“Operating and operating efficiently are two very different things,” he said. He cited academic studies that show sodium-ion batteries demonstrating stronger sensitivity to real-world conditions than lithium-ion, particularly around internal resistance, energy losses and substantial self-heating.
“None of this shows up on a product datasheet today, and buyers have low experience with this technology,” he said.
“Development in Sodium-ion chemistry is progressing rapidly, and products are expected to perform better today than two years ago. So I expect such study done on the next generation of SIB will perform better.”
Meanwhile, ex-Fluence exec and industry figurehead Marek Kubik gave his views on sodium-ion’s potential for BESS to us in a video interview at the Energy Storage Summit 2026 in London in February.