American Battery Leadership Coalition Launches to Establish Sodium-Ion Batteries as a U.S. National Priority

Industry alliance aims to strengthen America’s energy security, manufacturing competitiveness, and battery supply chain resilience.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The American Battery Leadership Coalition (ABLC), led by Alsym Energy and Peak Energy alongside Batri, ESS Tech, Inc., Ingevity, Mana, NAION, Re:Build and Microporous, and other leaders across the sodium-ion battery ecosystem, today announced the launch of a new industry coalition dedicated to establishing sodium-ion batteries as an essential battery technology for U.S. energy storage, manufacturing competitiveness, and national security strategy.

The coalition brings together cell developers, materials suppliers, manufacturing companies, and energy storage system providers to advocate for federal policies that support the rapid commercialization and deployment of sodium-ion battery technology as the first scalable non-lithium solution capable of meeting America’s growing energy storage needs.

As global demand for batteries accelerates alongside AI infrastructure growth, grid modernization, electrification, and energy storage deployment, coalition members say the United States faces an increasingly urgent challenge: the battery supply chain is heavily dependent on lithium-ion technologies and concentrated foreign supply chains, particularly in China.

Sodium-ion is the next frontier in energy storage, and global competition to lead it is intensifying. While China currently dominates sodium-ion manufacturing, the chemistry remains early enough in its commercialization that the United States can still establish a leadership position, supported by a domestic resource base and American innovation. American companies have already announced more than 15 GWh of planned sodium-ion storage offtakes, reflecting sodium’s reliability and a broad drive to diversify away from lithium-ion supply chains.

“Sodium-ion technology represents a critical opportunity for the United States to build leadership in the next generation of battery innovation before the sodium-ion market reaches full maturity and global leadership positions become entrenched,” said Graeme Grant, COO of Alsym Energy. “While lithium-ion is already a massive global industry operating at scale, sodium-ion remains early enough in its commercialization journey for the U.S. to establish global leadership. There is urgency to act now.”

He continued: “Sodium-ion is a better path forward for stationary energy storage because it offers strong economic advantages, including lower operating costs, long cycling performance, full depth of discharge and high roundtrip efficiency. Importantly, sodium-ion is built on abundant global resources, for some of which the US has a structural competitive advantage, and none of which are rare earth minerals. This means we can create a competitive and sustainable domestic, non-Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) supply chain. As raw material and manufacturing costs continue to decline, sodium-ion batteries are positioned to become the low-cost leader for stationary storage applications.”

Even with these advantages, the sodium-ion battery industry will still need favorable policy support to advance at the pace required and to compete with global players. Today’s federal policy frameworks were largely designed around lithium-based chemistries, which have dominated to date, and they leave sodium-ion behind in several ways: limited statutory recognition, narrow eligibility for key manufacturing incentives, procurement rules that favor incumbent technologies, and insufficient dedicated funding pathways for research, pilot projects, and commercialization.

Federal policy has maintained a narrow focus on lithium-based chemistries at the expense of developing alternative, globally competitive technologies. More than 90 percent of federal grant funding for battery development has gone to mature lithium-based projects while the United States continues to struggle to compete or meaningfully diversify its lithium-based supply chains.

The ABLC was formed to address policy blindspots that have left complimentary technologies undersupported and drive investment and policy support to secure America’s leadership in sodium-ion technology.

“Sodium-ion is America’s opportunity to build a globally competitive battery product with a mine-to-grid domestic supply chain. The United States cannot afford to miss the sodium-ion opportunity or we will again find ourselves boxed out of a market that has been driven by American innovation but capitalized upon by other nations. The window of opportunity is fleeting and decisive federal leadership to promote and develop a domestic sodium-ion battery industry is essential to our global competitiveness,” said Edward McGlone, Vice President of Government Affairs for Peak Energy. “The coalition’s goal is to ensure policymakers support the strategic prioritization of building a domestic battery ecosystem that is independent of global supply chains and better serves the needs of AI data centers and grid-scale energy storage demand.”

The coalition will focus on driving federal policies that promote American leadership in sodium-ion manufacturing and supply chains. American leadership will require scaling midstream processing, driving offtake for sodium-ion batteries, and ensuring procurement pathways that offer long-term demand and stability for domestic content.

The coalition will also work to ensure sodium-ion technology is incorporated into broader U.S. industrial policy and energy security discussions as policymakers evaluate long-term strategies for grid reliability, AI-related power demand, and domestic manufacturing competitiveness.

ABOUT THE AMERICAN BATTERY LEADERSHIP COALITION

The American Battery Leadership Coalition (ABLC) is a member-driven policy and advocacy organization representing companies advancing sodium-ion battery technology as a mainstream solution for stationary energy storage, domestic manufacturing resilience, and U.S. energy security. The coalition works to advance federal policies that support the growth, commercialization, and deployment of sodium-ion battery technology in the United States. For more information about the ABLC, please visit americanbatteryleadership.com.