May 11, 2024, Nanning, Guangxi — Supported by the National Key R&D Program project "Hundred-Megawatt-Hour Class Sodium-Ion Battery Energy Storage Technology," a collaborative effort led by Guangxi Power Grid Co., Ltd., Southern Power Grid Energy Storage Co., Ltd., the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, HiNa Battery Technology Co., Ltd., and other partners has culminated in the official grid connection of the world's first 10 MWh sodium-ion battery energy storage station at the grid side. This marks the first large-scale application of sodium-ion battery technology in China.

The initial phase, with a capacity of 10 MWh, is projected to generate 7.3 million kWh of clean electricity annually, correspondingly reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 5,000 tons. It can meet the annual electricity demand of 3,500 residential households. Upon full completion, the project is designed to reach a total scale of one hundred megawatt-hours.

Sodium-ion batteries offer advantages such as wide availability and abundant reserves of raw materials, low cost, high energy conversion efficiency, excellent fast-charging capability, and good low-temperature performance. They hold promise for applications in large-scale electrochemical energy storage, electric vehicles, and engineering machinery, potentially becoming the most cost-effective electrochemical energy storage technology. Together with other storage technologies, they will accelerate the development of China's new energy storage power stations towards centralized, large-scale trends and facilitate the high-percentage integration of large-scale wind and photovoltaic power generation.

As the undertaking and participating unit of the "Hundred-Megawatt-Hour Class Sodium-Ion Battery Energy Storage Technology" project, the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and HiNa Battery developed high-performance sodium-ion cells. These cells feature a wide operating temperature range, excellent fast-charging, and high-rate capability—achieving 90% charge in 12 minutes—serving as the fundamental building blocks of the entire grid-side sodium-ion battery energy storage system. Prior to the Chinese New Year, HiNa Battery successfully delivered the first batch of 10 MWh sodium-ion cells to China Southern Power Grid for trial production verification and performance evaluation of this station.

In an interview with CCTV News, Academician Chen Liquan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering stated, "Our country is definitely committed to developing renewable energy. Without energy storage, it would be impossible to solve the problem of long-distance storage and transportation for renewables. Currently, important devices among new energy storage systems are lithium-ion batteries and sodium-ion batteries. The current development trend for sodium-ion batteries is their industrialization. In the future, sodium-ion batteries will undoubtedly bring significant economic benefits."

The official grid connection of this station signifies a critical breakthrough in the engineering development of large-scale sodium-ion battery energy storage. This progress not only demonstrates China's strength in the fields of renewable energy and energy storage technology but also provides powerful support for the future transformation of the energy structure and green development. Furthermore, the operation of the sodium-ion battery energy storage station will help address the integration challenges of renewable energy, promote its development, and play a crucial role in achieving the carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals.

Moving forward, HiNa Battery will continue to advance the research and production of sodium-ion batteries, accelerating application validation in areas such as large-scale energy storage, distributed energy storage, and industrial energy storage, providing vital support for the development of sodium-ion batteries in China.

This project also received support from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Strategic Priority Research Program (Category A) "Key Technologies and Demonstration of Energy Storage Based on a High Proportion of Renewable Energy"!