China’s CATL touts landmark energy-storage order for sodium-ion batteries

Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) has taken a leap forward in commercialising sodium-ion batteries, signing a large supply contract with an energy-storage system (ESS) provider amid high demand for power infrastructure after the global oil shock. The world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) and ESS battery maker announced on Monday that it would deliver 60 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of sodium-ion batteries to Beijing HyperStrong Technology over three years in a landmark deal for the new battery technology. Sodium-ion batteries, an alternative to the pervasive lithium-ion type, bank on a more plentiful raw material, making them cheaper to produce. “The deal could be interpreted as a ‘DeepSeek moment’ for the global ESS battery industry, since wide use of sodium in production could greatly reduce costs and improve manufacturing efficiency,” said Davis Zhang, a senior executive at Suzhou Hazardtex, a supplier of specialised batteries. “Commercialisation of sodium-ion batteries will benefit the EV and ESS industries.” Artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek drew the world’s attention to China’s AI prowess in early 2025 when it released a breakthrough large language model developed at a lower cost than Western counterparts. The order was the world’s largest for sodium-ion batteries to date, in line with booming construction of ESS infrastructure buoyed by AI computing and data centres around the world. “This agreement signals that CATL has overcome all the challenges in mass-producing sodium-ion batteries,” the company said in a statement. “We now have the capability for large-scale delivery.” One GWh of battery capacity can supply around 750,000 households for a year. Lofty oil prices since the US-Israel war with Iran started on February 28 have ushered in fresh demand for renewable energy projects and ESS batteries. CATL, based in Ningde in east China’s Fujian province, became the world’s first major manufacturer to initiate sodium-ion battery production last year. Sodium-ion batteries offered outstanding advantages over existing products in terms of low-temperature performance and charging speed, said Gao Huan, chief technology officer for the EV business at CATL. An ESS, also known as a grid storage system, combines batteries with systems for battery management, power conversion and control to store excess energy generated by renewable sources while providing backup power during outages, ensuring grid stability. China is now a dominant player in the global ESS industry, with mainland companies holding more than 80 per cent of the market. According to Seoul-based SNE Research, the global ESS battery market jumped 79 per cent year on year to 550GWh in 2025. The country’s leading battery producers unveiled plans to add more than 600GWh of new production capacity for the ESS market in just the first two months of 2026, the GGII Energy Storage Research Institute, a Shenzhen-based consultancy, said in a research report earlier this month. The planned facilities – spanning major players from CATL to Gotion High-tech – amount to roughly 10 times the 58GWh of total capacity installed across the US in 2025. Data from SNE Research showed that CATL held a 30 per cent share of the global ESS battery market in 2025, followed by Shenzhen-based Eve Energy with 12 per cent. Last week, CATL said that its sodium-ion batteries for EVs would be mass-produced and delivered in the fourth quarter of this year to power some cars built by state-owned Changan Automobile.