HiTHIUM, a China-based energy storage company, has unveiled a 4 MWh sodium-ion BESS built around a new 785 Ah cell. Its debut came at the company's "Powered Day in, Day out" launch event. The company puts the system's service life at 30 years. Full-scale production and delivery follow in 2027.

The cell is where that claim starts. Inside it is a polyanionic chemistry, an NFPP cathode working with a hard-carbon anode and a customized electrolyte. Ultra-thick electrodes and long-life structural components go with it, and wide-format stacking keeps the cell compatible with the company's existing kAh-class lithium-ion manufacturing platform, which is what allows production to scale. On HiTHIUM's figures the cell holds 20,000 cycles at 70% state of health and supports storage durations from two to eight hours.

Built into a system, those cells change the shape of the station. A stacked-cell architecture reduces station footprint by 30%, and rated-power utilization of the power conversion system is more than 20% higher than in the company's previous-generation sodium-ion system. HiTHIUM reports 24-hour comprehensive efficiency above 88%, with operating and standby auxiliary power consumption reduced by 30% and 50% respectively, and the operating life is set to align with a 30-year power-station cycle.

Aileen Wang, Director of HiTHIUM's Battery Research Institute, put the service life in plainer terms, saying 30 years means 10,950 days of validation and a long-term commitment to customers. Nazar Yi, Chief Technology Officer, named the two conditions that decide whether sodium-ion scales, affordability and long-term resource availability, and it is against those that the company sets its cost goal of moving levelized storage costs toward CNY 0.1 per kWh.

Where the chemistry goes next is set out in the same terms. Sodium-ion is presented as complementary to lithium-ion rather than as a replacement, with utility-scale storage the first target and commercial and industrial, residential and broader energy-access applications to follow. An Edge Pioneer Program will test cells and systems in extreme environments and disclose progress over the next three years.

Founded in 2019, HiTHIUM specializes in integrated energy storage solutions centred on battery and system technologies, focusing on utility-scale, long-duration and grid-side storage across more than 40 countries and regions.