GM and Peak Energy are building a $71 million, 4 GWh sodium-ion factory near Sacramento for grid storage only. The cells lose to lithium iron phosphate on density and per-cell cost, but claim 20,000 cycles, 96% round-trip efficiency and no cooling loop at all.
Read the full story: GM Backs Sodium-Ion for the Grid, Not for Its Cars →
Transcript
General Motors is funding a battery it will never put in a car. Its partner Peak Energy is building a seventy-one million dollar sodium-ion factory near Sacramento, aimed entirely at grid storage. Here is the twist. On the specs everyone quotes, sodium loses. Lower energy density, higher cost per cell. But a battery that just sits in a field does not care about those. It cares about two things: how long it lasts, and what it costs to keep cool. Peak's cells claim twenty thousand charge cycles against lithium's eight thousand, and they run hot enough to need no cooling loop at all. Delete the pumps, delete the maintenance, and the twenty year cost drops below lithium. That is the whole bet.