Almost every rechargeable battery in the world — in phones, electric vehicles, and grid-scale energy storage — relies on lithium. Lithium works well. But it is expensive, unevenly distributed across the planet, and increasingly subject to the pressures of geopolitical competition. For countries without lithium reserves, it creates an uncomfortable dependency in the very infrastructure meant to free them from fossil fuels.
Sodium — the element found in ordinary table salt — is the alternative that researchers have been working on for decades. It is the sixth most abundant element on Earth, found virtually everywhere, and costs a fraction of lithium's price. In 2025, sodium-ion batteries stopped being a promising laboratory concept and became a commercial reality.
MIT Technology Review named sodium-ion batteries one of its ten breakthrough technologies of 2026. China's CATL — the world's largest battery manufacturer — launched its sodium-ion product line, called Naxtra, at scale in 2025, with plans to expand into energy storage, passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, and battery-swap systems across 2026. BYD, the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer, is constructing a major sodium-ion production facility. China's Yadea launched four models of electric scooters powered by sodium-ion batteries in 2025, with cities already piloting battery-swap stations to support commuters and delivery workers.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) — the intergovernmental body that supports countries transitioning to clean energy — projects that sodium-ion battery cell costs could fall to around US$40 per kilowatt-hour as the technology scales. At that price point, grid-scale energy storage becomes financially accessible to countries and communities that have never been able to afford it.
The most significant consequence may not be in wealthy countries at all, but in the parts of Africa, South Asia, and Latin America where unreliable or unaffordable electricity has constrained development for generations. A battery that costs less, uses materials available everywhere, and stores solar and wind energy for use at night or in bad weather is not just an energy technology. It is an infrastructure equaliser.