The company has said future applications for sodium-ion batteries may also include electric vehicles and grid energy storage.Įven before the work on the manufacturing plant gets underway, both companies say there are extraordinary advantages to their hook-up. In a written statement Colin Wessells, Natron’s founder and CEO, described the manufacturing facility project as “the beginning of a new era” for his company. Absent those problems, they believe sodium-ion batteries will become the battery of choice based on availability and stability of price. Natron is banking on users of lithium batteries being tired of shortages caused by the scarcity of materials and disruptions of deliveries from foriegn mining projects. Since then, the company says, a number of Fortune 500 companies - primarily in the telecom industry or reliant on data centers - have validated its work through independent testing and real-world usage. Natron has spent 10 years perfecting sodium-ion battery chemistry for mass manufacturing, and in 2021 released the world’s first UL listed sodium-ion battery product. In addition to effectively solving the supply chain issues associated with lithium batteries, they’d also be far less costly to produce. However, they have one great advantage over their lithium predecessors - sodium is naturally abundant almost everywhere, whereas lithium battery components like cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium itself are often difficult to source. Sodium-ion batteries are rechargeable batteries analogous to the lithium-ion battery most people are already familiar with. Natron Energy Inc., a Santa Clara, California-based maker of sodium-ion batteries, and Clarios International Inc., a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based maker of low-voltage advanced battery technologies, have agreed to retool the latter’s so-called Meadowbrook facility and start mass producing sodium-ion batteries there starting in 2023.

A city perhaps best known today for being the home of the much-photographed Big Red Lighthouse that stands between the channel linking Lake Macatawa to Lake Michigan, will soon be home to the world’s first mass-scale sodium-ion battery plant.

Natron energy battery