October 29, 2026 – CATL is pushing sodium-ion storage deeper into Europe. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with German integrator INTILION to deploy up to 3GWh of its TENER sodium-ion energy-storage systems across Germany, Switzerland and Austria over the next five years.
The deal covers grid-scale peak shaving, frequency regulation and commercial-and-industrial storage. It also marks a step up from the two companies’ earlier cooperation, which has been based mainly on lithium-ion solutions. Since 2022, CATL and INTILION have delivered more than 30 storage projects in Germany.
INTILION, headquartered in Paderborn and spun out of battery group HOPPECKE in 2019, provides design, supply, installation, commissioning and operations-and-maintenance services for utility-scale and C&I storage customers. The new agreement brings CATL’s sodium-ion storage system into the German-speaking market at a time when Europe is expanding wind and solar capacity and looking for more diversified supply chains.
The TENER Sodium system is designed for cold climates. CATL says it can maintain more than 92 percent of available energy at minus 20 degrees Celsius, deliver over 15,000 cycles at 25 degrees Celsius, exceed 10,000 cycles at 45 degrees Celsius, and achieve a round-trip efficiency above 96.5 percent. Its modular architecture decouples energy and power, supports one- to eight-hour durations, and uses a dedicated Bi-DC voltage-regulation system to keep the power-conversion system operating efficiently across the sodium cell’s wide voltage range.
Compared with lithium iron phosphate, sodium-ion chemistry does not rely on lithium resources and offers advantages in low-temperature output, thermal stability and auxiliary power consumption. CATL’s sodium system is said to cut auxiliary power consumption to around 1 percent and reduce noise to about 65 decibels, which can help when storage sites are built near urban or residential areas.
This is not CATL’s only recent sodium-ion storage move in Europe. The company has also signed agreements with Dutch firm Alfen for 5GWh and with Eastern European developer Solarpro for 2GWh. With the INTILION framework, CATL’s disclosed sodium-ion storage order book has climbed to roughly 70GWh, signaling that the technology is moving from pilot demonstrations toward commercial-scale deployment.
Sodium-ion storage still faces questions on cost maturity, supply-chain scale and customer acceptance. But for European markets with long winters, frequent frequency-regulation duties and high safety requirements, sodium chemistry is beginning to look like a practical complement to lithium rather than just a laboratory alternative.
