While lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) dominate the current landscape of battery energy storage systems (BESSs), they have significant safety issues, as evident from the increasing number of LIB-related fire incidents in countries across the world, including India. Further, critical minerals used in LIB electrodes are geographically concentrated, leading to supply chain vulnerabilities.
Meanwhile, driven by global initiatives such as the COP29 Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge, the deployment of BESS is expected to increase rapidly in all sectors, including electricity and transport sectors. In India, BESS demand from electric vehicles (EVs) and stationary grid applications by 2030 is expected to be 381 GWh and 181 GWh, respectively, as per the 2022 NITI Aayog report. Thus, the challenges with LIBs, coupled with the increasing demand for BESSs, make it imperative to explore alternative battery technologies.
With their lower cost and superior safety features, SIBs show promise as an alternative to LIBs. Sodium is approximately 1,000 times more abundant than lithium, ruling out any shortage of sodium in the future. Further, the cyclability (ability of a battery to withstand stresses imposed during charging and discharging cycles) of SIBs is comparable to that of state-of-the-art LIBs. SIBs also have a wider operating temperature range (−20 °C to 60 °C) than LIBs, allowing them to be used under extreme temperature conditions such as those in the Indian subcontinent. Further, the infrastructure used for manufacturing LIBs (such as pouches and prismatic and cylindrical cells) can be directly employed with small adjustments and modifications to make SIBs.
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