Alfen Beheer BV

CATL recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement on sodium-ion energy storage with Dutch energy infrastructure company Alfen, planning to deploy a total of 5 GWh of TENER sodium-ion energy storage systems in Western European countries such as the Netherlands starting from 2027. This marks the company's first sodium-ion energy storage order in Europe. CATL stated that this cooperation extends its energy storage business from lithium-ion to next-generation sodium-ion technology, indicating that mainstream overseas customers are beginning to substantively include sodium-ion in their procurement choices. The joint deployment projects will allow both parties to accumulate localized application experience for sodium-ion in European power grids, accelerating global mass shipments. The TENER sodium-ion energy storage system is based on sodium-ion battery technology, offering advantages over lithium-ion in safety performance, operating temperature range, and sustainability. It does not rely on lithium resources, and its cost structure is less sensitive to lithium price fluctuations. Domestically, CATL signed a three-year, 60 GWh sodium-ion battery order with Hyperstrong in April this year. The country's first hundred-megawatt-hour-level sodium-ion battery energy storage station, the second-phase expansion of the Fuling sodium-ion battery energy storage station in Nanning, Guangxi, was put into operation in October 2025. In 2025, the company's energy storage battery sales reached 121 GWh, a year-on-year increase of 29.13 percent, with energy storage business revenue exceeding 62.4 billion yuan and a gross margin of 26.71 percent. In the first quarter of 2026, combined sales of power and energy storage batteries surpassed 200 GWh, with the energy storage business share rising to about 25 percent. Management attributes the rapid growth of the energy storage business to a dual explosion in domestic and international markets. Domestically, the positioning of the energy storage market and capacity pricing mechanisms are becoming increasingly clear, while overseas, the synergy between AI and data center computing power is driving allocation demand. To date, CATL has delivered over 3,000 energy storage projects globally and is expanding its Fuding sodium-ion production base with an additional 40 GWh of capacity, while the Shandong Jining base plans to add 160 GW of capacity.