Natron plans to 40X its capacity with a 14 GW sodium-ion battery factory in Southeast U.S.

Natron plans to invest nearly $1.4 billion in building a sodium-ion battery factory in North Carolina. The plant is expected to produce 14 gigawatts of sodium-ion batteries per year at full capacity, increasing Natron's production by more than 40 times its current capacity.

The factory is part of Natron's strategy to leverage the growing demand for sodium-ion battery storage, according to the battery maker's co-CEO Wendell Brooks.

The company has progressively expanded its battery production capacity over the past few months. In April, it began commercial-scale operations at its sodium-ion battery manufacturing facility in Michigan.

The sodium-ion batteries to be produced at its future North Carolina plant will be delivered to a wide range of customers in the industrial power space, such as data centers, mobility, electric vehicle fast charging, microgrids, and telecommunications, according to the battery maker.

Natron's Prussian blue electrodes store and transform sodium ions faster due to their lower internal resistance, the company said. (Prussian blue is a dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts.) The battery chemistry does not strain amid charging and discharging, has a 10-times faster cycling than lithium-ion batteries and a more than 50,000 cycle life, Natron said.

The company's batteries also do not pose the fire risks associated with lithium-ion batteries. Being made from materials such as aluminum, iron, manganese, and sodium electrolyte, their sodium-ion batteries are also not prone to the same supply chain challenges as their lithium counterparts.

Natron's upcoming facility will be located at North Carolina's Kingsboro business park, a location designated by rail carrier CSX, which helps businesses locate the best rail-served sites for development or expansion.

"This flagship manufacturing facility will dramatically accelerate our efforts to deliver sodium-ion batteries to customers who are hungry for safe, reliable, and environmentally responsible energy storage solutions," Natron founder and co-CEO Colin Wessells said in a statement.