Peak Energy behind Colorado sodium-ion battery cell engineering center

Peak Energy, a developer of utility-scale energy storage systems, is partnering with a Colorado economic development agency to establish an engineering center in the state to focus on the advancement and commercialization of sodium-ion battery technology.

“Sodium-ion batteries offer distinct advantages in a grid-scale setting,” said Cameron Dales, chief commercial officer and co-founder of Peak Energy.

The facility, located in Bloomfield, will host R&D efforts to provide an alternative to large-scale lithium-ion battery energy storage.

Peak said the engineering center, scheduled to open in December 2024, will serve as a testbed for validating battery products in commercial applications, with an emphasis on demonstrating scalability for utility-scale energy storage. Partnering with companies across the supply chain, Peak Energy said it hopes to begin domestic manufacturing of sodium-ion battery cells by 2027 and to enable fully domestic sourcing of materials by 2030.

Rather than fully supplanting lithium-ion batteries, Peak said it wants to replace the technology for large-scale energy storage, leaving lithium-ion devices for electric vehicles (EVs) and consumer electronics. That aspiration reflects the larger footprint sodium-ion batteries require.

Peak’s Dales noted the lower energy density which means more sodium-ion devices are needed to provide the same capacity as equivalent lithium-ion products also means the former are stackable and offer less risk of thermal runaway.

“These batteries also have a wider [operating] temperature range without degradation, meaning they last longer,” Dales said, adding, “Sodium is a cheap, abundant, and domestically available commodity.”

More widely available components mean a sodium-ion battery supply chain is viable in the United States but the technology will have to compete on price with lithium-ion products which have become cheaper as demand has risen.

Peak Energy said it will work with battery R&D partners to advance new materials and cell designs. Rather than researching new technology from the concept stage, the engineering center hopes to serve as a conduit to help promising approaches reach full-scale manufacture. In that vein, the company wants partners to help commercialize its sodium ion phosphate (Sodium Ferric Phosphate Pyrophosphate, or NFPP) formulation as a cost-effective option in large-scale battery installations.

“The primary focus is on validating and optimizing our current NFPP sodium-ion chemistry,” Dales said. “Over time, we will be working with our partners to optimize and validate next-gen chemistries.”

Elsewhere in the United States, Ohio-based Solidion is hoping to use sodium’s abundance as the basis for development of sodium electrolytes for EV batteries.

From pv magazine USA.