Background:

As Document No.4815 at the Fourth Session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference shows, a member of the Committee has put forward with a proposal about igorously developing sodium-ion battery. It is commonly considered by battery experts that sodium-ion battery will become an important supplement of lithium-ion especially with promising future in the field of stationary storage energy.

Reply from MIIT:

MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China) replied that they will organize relevant standard study institutes to initiate formulating standard of sodium-ion battery in proper future, and provide support in the process of standard formulation project initiation and approval. At the same time, in accordance with national policies and industry trends, they will combine relevant standards to study relevant regulations and policies of the sodium-ion battery industry and guide the healthy and orderly development of the industry.

MIIT stated that they will strengthen the planning in the “14th Five-Year Plan” and other related policy documents. In regards to the promotion of cutting-edge technology research, improvement of supporting policies, and expansion of market applications, they will do top-level design, improve industrial policies, coordinate and guide the high-quality development of sodium ion battery industry.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and Technology will implement the “Energy Storage and Smart Grid Technology” key special project during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, and list sodium-ion battery technology as a sub-task to further promote the large-scale, low-cost, and comprehensive performance of sodium-ion batteries.

In addition, relevant departments will give support to sodium-ion batteries so as to accelerate the transformation of innovative achievements and to the capacity building of advanced products; optimize relevant product catalogs in a timely manner according to the development process of the industry, so as to accelerate the application of high-performed and qualified sodium-ion batteries in the field of new energy power stations, vehicles, and communication base stations. Through production, education, research, and the collaboration of innovation, sodium-ion batteries will be promoted to full commercialization.

Interpretation of MIIT reply:

1.Industry experts have reached a preliminary consensus on the application of sodium-ion batteries, the development prospects of which have been approved by government agencies in preliminary evaluations;

2.The application of sodium-ion battery is as a supplement or auxiliary to lithium-ion battery, mainly in the field of energy storage;

3.The commercialization of sodium ion batteries will take some time.