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Sodium batteries looks great on the outside, but amount of charge discharge cycles is roughly half what lithium batteries can do. So what you will save on cost

Sodium batteries looks great on the outside, but amount of charge discharge cycles is roughly half what lithium batteries can do. So what you will save on cost difference between sodium and lithium will get eaten up by shorter life of sodium battery.

vardump 3y ago
A really bold claim, any sources? Please remember there are a lot of different sodium-ion chemistries.
mattmaroon 3y ago
That’s fine though. Thanks to time value of money, if it costs half as much but has to be replaced in half the time it’s actually quite profitable. (Assuming, of course, the labor cost is low.) If they can be recycled like lithium, even better.
- thfuran 3y ago
  As long as you want to watch the world burn.
jtriangle 3y ago
Understand that, they're about half the cost of lithium currently, but they don't have nearly the same scale benefit as lithium does. It's likely that cost could half again if they achieved the same scale. And recall that, early lithium batteries had a fraction of the longevity that current designs have, so, it's likely that sodium batteries have plenty of room for improvement in that regard as well. In my mind, the likely application is grid-scale storage where density doesn't matter as much but upfront cost does. Not really so much for renewables, but more so that you can store your unused base load during offpeak hours for later use.
mips_r4300i 3y ago
That's true, which makes them perfect for Powerwall-type backup power, where weight is not a concern and the number of cycles will be very low. The other way to deal with low cycle count is to keep the cells only half-charged and minimize the excursions from that. A large pack that goes from 40 to 60 percent daily will last eons compared to one cycled from 90 to 10 percent. From what I understand, the degradation of the cell is not linear with the discharge excursion. So you may have exponentially better battery life the narrower of charge band you keep it in. If anyone has more detailed information let me know, I'd like to see better numbers.
- zizee 3y ago
  Having lower total number of cycles, and a tighter operating band has a huge impact on the lifetime cost of operation. How much cheaper are these types of batteries expected to be?
CyberDildonics 3y ago
but amount of charge discharge cycles is roughly half what lithium batteries can do This is not true if you are talking about lithium ion batteries. It may be true for some chemistries if you are talking about lithium iron phosphate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Comparison

vardump 3y ago

A really bold claim, any sources? Please remember there are a lot of different sodium-ion chemistries.

mattmaroon 3y ago

That’s fine though. Thanks to time value of money, if it costs half as much but has to be replaced in half the time it’s actually quite profitable. (Assuming, of course, the labor cost is low.) If they can be recycled like lithium, even better.

thfuran 3y ago
As long as you want to watch the world burn.

jtriangle 3y ago

Understand that, they're about half the cost of lithium currently, but they don't have nearly the same scale benefit as lithium does. It's likely that cost could half again if they achieved the same scale. And recall that, early lithium batteries had a fraction of the longevity that current designs have, so, it's likely that sodium batteries have plenty of room for improvement in that regard as well. In my mind, the likely application is grid-scale storage where density doesn't matter as much but upfront cost does. Not really so much for renewables, but more so that you can store your unused base load during offpeak hours for later use.

mips_r4300i 3y ago

That's true, which makes them perfect for Powerwall-type backup power, where weight is not a concern and the number of cycles will be very low. The other way to deal with low cycle count is to keep the cells only half-charged and minimize the excursions from that. A large pack that goes from 40 to 60 percent daily will last eons compared to one cycled from 90 to 10 percent. From what I understand, the degradation of the cell is not linear with the discharge excursion. So you may have exponentially better battery life the narrower of charge band you keep it in. If anyone has more detailed information let me know, I'd like to see better numbers.

zizee 3y ago
Having lower total number of cycles, and a tighter operating band has a huge impact on the lifetime cost of operation. How much cheaper are these types of batteries expected to be?

CyberDildonics 3y ago

but amount of charge discharge cycles is roughly half what lithium batteries can do This is not true if you are talking about lithium ion batteries. It may be true for some chemistries if you are talking about lithium iron phosphate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery#Comparison