American Battery Leadership Coalition forms to push US sodium-ion policy

A group of US sodium-ion battery companies has formed a coalition to lobby Washington for federal policy support, arguing that the chemistry is the country’s best near-term path to a battery supply chain that does not depend on China. The American Battery Leadership Coalition (ABLC), led by Alsym Energy and Peak Energy, launched as a member-driven advocacy organization for sodium-ion as a mainstream stationary storage technology.

Founding members include cell developers, materials suppliers, manufacturers and energy storage system providers. Batri, ESS Tech, Ingevity, Mana, NAION, Re:Build and Microporous are among the member companies. Despite the US government’s hostility to renewable energy and EV technology, the group is advocating for federal policies that speed the commercialization and deployment of sodium-ion batteries.

ABLC says current federal frameworks were built around lithium-based chemistries and leave sodium-ion behind through limited statutory recognition, narrow eligibility for manufacturing incentives, procurement rules that favor incumbents and thin funding for research and pilot projects. More than 90 percent of federal battery grant funding has gone to mature lithium-based projects, according to the coalition.

China dominates sodium-ion manufacturing, but the coalition argues the technology is early enough in its commercialization that the US can still establish a leadership position from a domestic resource base. American companies have announced more than 15 GWh of planned sodium-ion storage offtakes, the group says, reflecting a broader push to diversify away from lithium-ion.

The coalition plans to focus on scaling domestic midstream processing, driving offtake for sodium-ion cells and securing procurement pathways that guarantee long-term demand for domestic content. It also wants sodium-ion technology to be a focus of US industrial and energy-security policy as officials weigh grid reliability and rising power demand from AI data centers.

“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 round-trip efficiency,” said Graeme Grant, COO of Alsym Energy. “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.”

Source: American Battery Leadership Coalition