Supplier to Australia’s biggest battery expects to announce first sodium-ion battery project soon

Valo Energy, the supplier to what is currently Australia’s biggest battery project at Eraring in New South Wales, says it expects to sign the first deal in Australia for a large-scale sodium-ion battery sometime soon.

Peter Fath, the CEO of Valo, a newly-created joint venture between Finnish energy giant Wärtsilä and Germany’s RCT, says sodium-ion battery technology is emerging rapidly, driven largely by Chinese manufacturers looking for alternatives to lithium, most of which they have to import.

Fath told Renew Economy in the latest episode of the Energy Insiders podcast that Valo expects to announce a contract for a sodium-ion battery system soon – possibly in the first quarter of 2027.

Australia is one of two countries where these deals are being negotiated, along with the UK, and he hinted that it could end as a “hybrid” system combining lithium components (for fast response) and sodium-ion components (“for the long tail”).

“I cannot tell too much detail about the project,” Fath told Energy Insiders. “It will likely come in a mixed configuration … we are talking about eight hours, so it should be at least 50 megawatts connected power for sodium, and then the rest can be for lithium.”

Here the interview in full: Energy Insiders: Grid scale sodium batteries are on their way

That sodium-ion batteries are on the horizon is not a complete surprise. US car giant GM recently announced a major deal to roll out sodium-ion grid batteries developed by Peak Energy, while Chinese battery giant CATL has also flagged major investments in sodium-ion technology and recently rolled out the world’s first validated large scale system.

Australian energy companies, including AGL, the country’s biggest power generator, have already flagged sodium-ion as a potential battery chemistry in some of their latest project planning applications.

The lithium-ion battery industry has already moved rapidly from NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) chemistries to LFP (lithium iron phosphate), and Fath says sodium-ion is the next phase, with each chemistry and mineral mix offering their own particular adantages.

Sodium is 1,000-times more abundant than lithium and distributed widely across the planet, and is seen as a potentially economic substitute for lithium-ion based batteries, although they have yet to reach commercial scale.

Fath says sodium batteries offer reduced fire risk, longer duration as battery requirements push out towards 12 hours, and the ability to operate within greater temperature extremes. And, as the technology rolls out its first projects and manufacturing efficiencies are achieved, the costs will also fall.

“It will serve long duration at a better cost structure compared to lithium iron phosphate,” Fath says. “I feel in the future we will have mixed setups. We might have even mixed, one site (connection) setups.”

Valo is currently supplying the Eraring battery that is being built by Origin Energy at the site of the country’s biggest coal fired power station. The first two stages have already installed, totalling 460 MW and 1,700 MWh, and a new stage will take it to 700 MW and 3,170 MWh, the biggest in the country, at least for now.

Origin Energy has already applied for approval to more than double the battery precinct to more than 1,200 MW and 8,000 MWh, and Valo would seem well placed to win that contract.

“We are talking,” Fath says. “(The Eraring battery) is using the grid connection of that old coal power plant. And of course, that’s a beautiful example of the transformation which is happening globally.”

Valo was recently announced as the supplier to the 400 MW, 1,600 MWh Teebar battery to be built in Queensland by Atmos Renewables, and it is also supplying batteries to the Blind Creek solar-battery DC hybrid project being built in NSW by Octopus Investments, which combines a 243 MW, 486 MWh battery with a 300 MW solar farm.

Wärtsilä had previously supplied AGL’s 250 MW, 250 MWh Torrens Island battery in South Australia. The Finnish company decided to put its battery storage business into the Valo joint venture, citing the lack of new business and compressed margins, but Fath says RCT – as a manufacturer – is best placed to strike good deals.

“We can manage the supply chain better because we know manufacturing costs, we know manufacturing … we are speaking the same language as our supply chain partners. It’s easier for us.”

You can hear the interview with Valo’s Peter Fath in full here: Energy Insiders: Grid scale sodium batteries are on their way

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