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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 ne
by bruce511 1y ago
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...
- rob74 1y agoI would gladly trade added weight for reduced fire risk in this kind of application...
- toomuchtodo 1y agoChina’s implementation has some pricing info. https://www.ess-news.com/2025/06/03/china-launches-worlds-first-grid-forming-sodium-ion-battery-storage-plant/ 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.
- ajdude 1y agoAccording 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-utility-scale-energy-storage-procurements https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/2025/03/a-2025-update-on-ut...
- toomuchtodo 1y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44513185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44513185 LFP is ~$52/kWh.
- naasking 1y agoEconomies of scale haven't even begun to kick in for sodium batteries.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoStrongly agree, importantly this demonstrates across various battery chemistries that fossil fuels for electricity are dead. It’s just time and velocity of deployment now.
- shvalipron 1y agoIs this with labor included?They also state in the article that this is the hybrid system which contains Lithium and Sodium batteries
- znpy 1y ago> 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).
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoLithium is not rare, nor is it a "rare earth" (which are not rare either).