Energy Transition: Sodium-Ion Battery Storage Expands KIT’s Energy Lab

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is expanding the Energy Lab – Europe’s leading research infrastructure for renewable energy systems – with a sodium-ion battery storage system. Researchers will investigate this emerging energy storage technology under realistic operating conditions, further strengthening KIT’s research into safe, sustainable, and high-performance storage technologies for tomorrow’s energy supply.

“One of the key research questions we want to address is thermal management and the behavior of sodium-ion battery systems under different load conditions,” says Marvin Dorn of KIT’s Institute for Automation and Applied Informatics. The facility will also serve as a test environment for next-generation components, adds Felix Schofer of KIT’s Institute of Electrical Engineering: “We can rapidly integrate new cell and module designs and test them within the controlled infrastructure of the Energy Lab.”

European Value Chain to Strengthen Supply Security

With an energy capacity of 100 kilowatt-hours and a power output of 50 kilowatts, the storage system is comparable in scale to commercial and industrial applications. It occupies approximately five cubic meters and weighs around three metric tons.

Sodium-ion battery technology is attracting growing interest from both researchers and industry. The required raw materials are abundant worldwide and less expensive than those used in lithium-ion batteries. In addition, the entire value chain can be established in Europe, helping to strengthen supply security. Another key advantage is the technology’s greater chemical and thermal stability, making it particularly well suited for applications with demanding safety requirements.

jho, August 03, 2026