Sodium-ion nears LFP on cell cost; 6K loan offer; LGES posts a net loss

Sodium-ion runs through three of these four battery items: a consultancy's cost study, a laboratory interphase, and a cell maker's sample plan. The fourth is cathode, backed by a conditional Pentagon loan commitment.

Wood Mackenzie: sodium-ion cells near LFP parity, systems after 2030

Sodium-ion cells from the market leaders should match lithium iron phosphate (LFP) on cost by the end of 2026, Wood Mackenzie said on November 5, but modules and full systems will not reach parity until after 2030. The consultancy counts over 70 GWh of sodium-ion supply agreements, with significant offtake in China, the US and Europe and India still in early commercial validation. BYD has 30 GWh of planned sodium-ion manufacturing capacity in China and CATL is targeting at least 1 GWh of shipments by end-2026, per the analysis, which covers China, the US, Germany and India.

The sticker price still favors lithium: a global average of $229 per kWh for sodium-ion against $200 for LFP, in Wood Mackenzie's figures. Its case for sodium-ion is the 20-year bill, which it puts 21% lower in total cost of ownership because the chemistry avoids augmentation events and costs less to operate. Policy, per the release, "outpaces cost as the key market driver." China exempts sodium-ion from its reinstated battery consumption tax through 2028 while LFP pays 2% from September 2026 and 4% from September 2027 (the tax we covered in September), and in the US, tariffs of about 58% on Chinese storage cells plus 45X manufacturing credits favor domestic sodium-ion production of the kind Peak Energy plans in Sacramento. Priya Shrivastava, a senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, says "the 2030-2035 window is where the economics decisively shift"; for projects being deployed today, the release adds, "LFP remains the bankable choice for 2 to 4 hour duration assets."

Joule: a borate-rich interphase for solid-state sodium cells

A salt additive kept a solid-state sodium cell at 92.38% of its capacity through 9,000 cycles in a paper published in Joule on November 5 by researchers at Xi'an Jiaotong University and collaborating institutions. The problem it targets is the interphase: the NaF-Na2CO3-Na2O layer formed by the commonly used NaTFSI salt "still suffers from early failure," the authors write. Adding the salt NaDFOB to a polyethylene oxide-based composite polymer electrolyte enriches that layer: the DFOB anion breaks down ahead of TFSI, leaving a borate-enriched interphase, Na4B2O5 alongside the NaF, Na2CO3 and Na2O, that conducts sodium ions while blocking electrons and enables dendrite-free sodium plating and stripping.

The cells held up on the bench, per the abstract: a sodium-sodium symmetric cell ran for 5,000 hours at 0.5 mA per square centimeter, and a full cell started at 99.4 mAh per gram and kept 92.38% of its capacity after 9,000 cycles at 3C. "All-solid-state" here means a polyethylene oxide-based composite polymer electrolyte, and these are research cells; the abstract names neither the cathode nor a cell format.

Office of Strategic Capital: a conditional $250 million for 6K's Tennessee cathode

The Department of War's Office of Strategic Capital announced on November 5 a $250 million conditional loan commitment with 6K to scale production of nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) cathode active material at 6K's PlusCAM facility in Jackson, Tennessee. OSC says the loan would catalyze an additional $250 million in private capital, and that the US produces less than 1% of its NMC cathode needs domestically. 6K's UniMelt microwave plasma process makes single-crystal NMC cathode powder in a single step, bypassing the precursor (pCAM) stage OSC calls foreign-dominated, which OSC credits with reducing production cycle times by up to tenfold.

It is a commitment, not yet a loan. 6K's release describes "a conditional loan commitment of up to $250 million" and says finalization depends on authorizations from governmental authorities, "the availability of appropriations," due diligence to the department's satisfaction and a set of financial, legal, technical and regulatory conditions before any funds are disbursed. CEO Saurabh Ullal says the plant would support over 200 jobs.

LG Energy Solution: storage shipments grow, the company posts a net loss

LG Energy Solution lost KRW 296.9 billion net in the third quarter, and KRW 231.2 billion before tax, despite operating profit of KRW 756 billion, according to its amended results filing on Korea's DART disclosure system on November 3. The company-wide figure follows a KRW 328.6 billion net loss in the second quarter and compares with a KRW 536.1 billion profit a year earlier; the nine-month net loss is KRW 1.57 trillion.

The operating profit leans on Washington. The KRW 756 billion includes an expected North America production subsidy of KRW 416.9 billion under the Section 45X advanced manufacturing production credit and other programs, per the filing; without it, operating profit was KRW 339.1 billion at a 3.7% margin. By our arithmetic, the subsidy is more than half of the total. The company's release of November 3 puts revenue at KRW 9.6 trillion, up 27.6% from the second quarter, and attributes the growth to a significant increase in ESS shipments, higher EV pouch shipments and continued solid supply of cylindrical cells; it does not mention the net loss. The revenue and operating figures repeat the preliminary disclosure of October 8, which left the pre-tax and net lines blank, and the filing says the numbers are preliminary and unaudited.

The storage business supplied the quarter's news. LGES secured its first direct-supply behind-the-meter BESS project, for an unnamed "big tech customer," and qualified as an NVIDIA DSX Ready BESS partner. It plans to convert more EV pouch lines to storage and add prismatic ESS lines to take North American ESS capacity above 70 GWh by end-2027, and it aims to produce sodium-ion samples by the end of 2026 for proof-of-concept testing with a key ESS customer.