CATL has agreed to supply 5 GWh of its Tener Sodium storage systems to the Dutch company Alfen for projects across Europe. The memorandum of understanding, announced Wednesday, is one of the biggest sodium-ion commitments the region has seen. Deployments are due to begin in 2027.
The product is the Tener Sodium platform that CATL, the world’s largest battery maker, launched in Munich on June 22. Its selling point is endurance. The systems are rated for 15,000 cycles, which CATL translates into a service life of 25 to 30 years at a 70% state-of-health threshold. Most lithium iron phosphate storage systems carry warranties covering anywhere from a few thousand cycles to roughly 10,000.
A buyer with a lithium habit
Alfen has built battery storage since 2011 and has more than 1 GWh installed across Europe, including some of the largest projects in the Netherlands. It has been buying lithium-ion cells from CATL since 2023.
“Sodium-ion is the next step in how we think about energy storage,” Alfen CEO Michael Colijn said. He called it “more diversified, resilient, and built for where the market is heading.”
Supply and price are a large part of the logic. Sodium is roughly 1,000 times more abundant than lithium and much cheaper to source, and it shields buyers from the lithium price swings that have rattled the storage business over the last three years. Alfen said the move should “optimise cost structures” and improve “resilience against lithium price volatility.”
Built for cold and heat
CATL says its dipole wide-temperature technology lets the system keep over 92% of its capacity at -20°C. At 45°C it supports more than 10,000 cycles. Neither case needs the extra insulation or active cooling that lithium systems usually require in extreme climates, and dropping that hardware accounts for a good share of the savings.
The company makes further claims. A bidirectional voltage-control power conversion system holds output at 690V and lifts round-trip efficiency by nearly 2%. Self-consumption falls to 1%, half the industry average. On safety, CATL cites a 40% cut in cell expansion force, 35% less gas generation, and a thermal runaway surface temperature of about 200°C, well above that of conventional lithium cells.
“With their superior safety performance and lifecycle sustainability advantages, sodium-ion batteries will deliver unique value to European customers,” said Tan Libin, CATL’s chief customer officer.
Orders pile up
The Alfen agreement follows a run of sodium-ion storage deals this year. In April, CATL signed a 60 GWh supply agreement with the integrator HyperStrong, the largest sodium order ever placed, and called the chemistry “mainstream-ready.” In the United States, Peak Energy shipped the country’s first grid-scale sodium-ion battery last year, and GM has since backed the company’s sodium platform. ESS, Natron and California utilities have placed sodium bets too.
Sodium-ion long suffered from low energy density, which matters in cars. Stationary storage cares more about cycle life, safety, temperature tolerance and cost.
