US sodium-ion (Na-ion) battery technology company Unigrid has begun international shipments of its proprietary sodium cobalt oxide (NCO) cathode cells at commercial volume.
The company claims to be the first battery company outside of China to export Na-ion cells at scale. It also states it will begin fulfilling off-take agreements this year.
Unigrid uses a fab-less, foundry-subscription model to expand its proprietary NCO cell chemistry by collaborating with manufacturing partners rather than building expensive gigafactories.
The company says this strategy enables rapid worldwide expansion, delivering Grade A cells directly from foundries to customers in 40-foot ocean containers.
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Commercialisation accelerated early last year after Unigrid achieved UN38.3 transport certification for its Na-ion cells. UN38.3 certifies Li-ion batteries for safe transportation.
By the end of 2025, the company had moved from pilot-scale to full-scale commercial exports. According to the company, these shipments represented the first-ever Na-ion exports at several international ports, which were traditionally designed for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and had to adapt to new procedures and declarations for the battery chemistry.
Unigrid’s ability to transport cells is notable, given that safely moving Li-ion batteries is a major complexity in the industry supply chain. The US National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is in the process of developing a new standard, NFPA 800, covering all aspects of battery transportation and storage.
NFPA 800 is open for public comment until 29 January. Matthew Paiss, Battery Safety Advisor at Sandia National Laboratories, is on the committee for the safety code, and noted on social media site LinkedIn, “(NFPA 800) includes chapters from manufacturing, R&D, storage/transportation of batteries, battery powered equipment, to recycling. This will be issued as a provisional standard, which is an ANSI streamlined process to get an initial document out for comments and into the update cycle sooner than the standard 3+ year process for a new standard or code.”
Later in the same year, Singapore-headquartered virtual power plant (VPP) company Blue Whale Energy announced its partnership with Unigrid to deploy solar PV with Na-ion batteries at commercial and industrial (C&I) sites in Southeast Asia.
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