(Yicai) July 1 -- China Datang said the first phase of its sodium-ion battery new-type energy storage power station project in Qianjiang, Hubei province, the largest such project in the world, has become operational.

The projects will have a total annual capacity of 100 megawatt/200 MW-hours, with half starting operation yesterday, Beijing-based Datang, one of China's five large-scale power generation companies, announced on the same day.

The power station is China's first 100 MWh-level sodium-ion energy storage project, marking the sodium-ion battery sector's entrance into a new commercialization stage.

Sodium-ion batteries have a better running efficacy under lower temperatures, can keep a charge-discharge efficiency of 85 percent even at minus 20 degrees Celsius, and ensure a charge-discharge cycle of 1,500 times at high temp of 60°C, said Cui Yongle, manager of the project. They also perform much better than general batteries in acupuncture and impact-resistance tests, Cui added.

The energy storage project includes 42 energy storage warehouses and 21 machines integrating energy boosters and converters, using large-capacity sodium-ion batteries of 185 ampere-hours, with a 110-kilovolt booster station as a supporting facility, according to information HiNa Battery Technology, which provides it with sodium-ion batteries, released today.

The power station will store up to 100,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in single charging after becoming fully operational, which it will release during the grid's pick hours to meet the daily power needs of about 12,000 households while also reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 13,000 tons a year.

Electrochemical energy storage mainly uses lithium-ion batteries, with sodium-ion battery commercialization still slowly advancing. Developing sodium-ion batteries can effectively solve China's overreliance on imported raw materials for lithium-ion batteries, with the country having rich reserves of sodium resources.

In addition, sodium-ion and lithium-ion batteries are similar in principle, and 90 percent of equipment can be interchanged, with sodium-ion batteries being safer, more resistant to low temperatures, and charging faster.

The sodium-ion battery sector's commercialization has been expanding slower than expected over the past two years due to the difficulty of lowering costs.

By 2025, sodium-ion batteries adopting the technological path of layered oxide will likely cost 83 percent of lithium iron phosphate batteries, the general manager of Chinese new energy and battery giant BYD's energy storage and new-type battery business division previously noted. The costs of sodium-ion batteries adopting the path of polyanion will probably fall to 69 percent of that of LFP batteries, the person added.

The sodium-ion battery industry is at the phase of implementing industrialization, according to Li Shujun, GM of HiNa Battery. The sector will begin to enter a phase of matured industrialization by 2026, he added, noting that a terawatt-hours-level industry will gradually form by 2030.

Editor: Martin Kadiev