CATL Debuts World's First Field-Validated Sodium-Ion BESS, Bringing Sodium Storage to Commercial Reality
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CATL Debuts World's First Field-Validated Sodium-Ion BESS, Bringing Sodium Storage to Commercial Reality
2026-06-22
Munich, Germany | June 22, 2026 — CATL today officially unveiled the TENER Sodium Energy Storage System, the world's first real-world validated sodium-ion energy storage solution in Munich, Germany. The solution has reached full commercial maturity across technology, production capacity, and supply chain readiness. Cumulative shipments are expected to reach 1 GWh by the end of 2026, with global deliveries to begin in June 2027.
"CATL is committed to promoting energy independence around the world while delivering long term value for our customers. To achieve this we have made it our mission to develop a new battery chemistry based upon abundant resources available across all continents, one that can support the energy needs of all eight billion people, while offering longer cycle life and enhanced safety" said William Wu, Director of CATL's Energy Storage Technology Center, at the launch event. " We believe that sodium and lithium together will form the twin foundations of the future energy storage system."
TENER Sodium: Certainty for an Uncertain Future<br>As the share of renewable energy continues to rise and AI-driven power demand surges, energy storage is moving from a supporting role to critical infrastructure for the global energy system. However, conventional energy storage has relied heavily on lithium-based systems, whose concentrated supply and volatile prices pose growing supply chain risks. Sodium—over 1,000 times more abundant than lithium and widely distributed—offers better extreme-temperature performance, safety, and cost potential, making a technology transition in energy storage inevitable.
"The energy storage industry has moved beyond a race for scale. Today, success is increasingly defined by the ability to create long-term value," said Amanda Xu, CTO ESS and President of ESS Europe CATL, in her keynote speech. "The principle we most firmly believe in is that readiness creates certainty."
And this is precisely the mission of TENER Sodium.
Powered by CATL's latest sodium-ion technology, TENER Sodium delivers more than 30 MWh of rated capacity on a fully modular architecture. This architecture delivers three direct benefits for customers:
Simpler project deployment , with each single module weighing about 42 tonnes and only 34 units required for a 1 GWh site.
Greater configuration flexibility , with energy and power blocks decoupled to support flexible storage durations of 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8 hours, tailored to specific project requirements.
Lower maintenance cost , as faulty modules can be quickly isolated and replaced independently, simultaneously improving station-level system availability while reducing customer OPEX and maximizing asset utilization.
Beyond modular convenience, CATL has purpose-built a station-level platform specifically for sodium-ion systems.
1.Voltage regulation: To address the wide voltage range of sodium-ion batteries, CATL has developed a dedicated bidirectional (Bi-DC) voltage regulation system for its sodium solution. The system enables automatic voltage boosting in the low-voltage range, allowing the PCS to consistently deliver optimal output across the full range. This improves overall system round trip efficiency (RTE) by nearly 2%. For a 1 GWh energy storage station, this means millions of additional kilowatt-hours of power generation each year. The system is compatible with all major PCS products worldwide and provides stronger grid support capability.
2. BMS system: CATL has designed a BMS system for sodium-ion energy storage systems to leverage sodium chemistry's continuously sloping voltage curve, enabling more accurate SOC estimation. Furthermore, the overcharge SOC tolerance of sodium-ion batteries has been increased by 20% compared with lithium-ion batteries. This gives the BMS an additional 20% safety margin for operation, allowing greater flexibility.
3. Ultra-low auxiliary energy consumption: The unique top-discharge airflow design eliminates thermal-island effects at the source, reducing system heat generation by nearly 30% compared to conventional solutions. Combined with a highly efficient liquid-cooling system, auxiliary power consumption has been reduced from the...