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GM targets sodium-ion storage
General Motors said Tuesday it is developing a lower-cost battery chemistry to store energy for the data centers fueling the artificial intelligence boom, as it works to grow a battery business beyond electric vehicles.
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GM engineers are working on sodium-ion battery cells at the company’s Wallace Battery Cell Innovation Center in Warren, a Detroit suburb, in partnership with Peak Energy, a Colorado-based energy storage startup, and backed by an investment from GM’s venture arm, GM Ventures.
GM’s Kurt Kelty said in a statement that "Sodium is one of the most abundant elements on Earth," and argued that abundance creates a path toward battery systems built from more accessible materials with greater long-term resilience.
Kelty said sodium-ion cells share important architectural similarities with lithium-ion, allowing GM to apply its battery expertise in cell design, prototyping and industrialization to move the chemistry forward.
GM said it is developing next-generation sodium-ion cells specifically for grid-scale storage, but did not disclose the size of its investment in Peak Energy or a timeline for commercial production.
Two-phase rollout and partners
GM unveiled a two-phase plan to commercialize sodium-ion and LFP battery systems for grid energy storage, with early samples aiming for 2028 production.
The plan centers on a partnership with Peak Energy to develop a full sodium-ion battery chemistry tailored to grid-scale energy storage, while GM also targets recycling and factory integration with Peak Energy, LG and Redwood.
TechCrunch reported that GM’s sodium-ion cells are expected to enter trial production at the company’s Battery Cell Development Center in 2028, and that GM expects the new center will cut about a year from the commercialization process.
GM said its grid-scale sodium-ion batteries don’t need cooling systems or fire-suppression systems, a design choice that Peak built to account for sodium-ion’s different behavior from lithium-ion.
GM said it will sell lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells from LG Energy Solution for use in energy storage systems, and it is expanding work with Redwood Materials, which operates a 12 megawatt/63 megawatt-hour microgrid for the Crusoe data center in Sparks, Nevada.
Vehicle-to-grid and grid demand
At an event in San Francisco, GM said it would activate new vehicle-to-grid capabilities for its current EV and home energy customers while also releasing a commercial energy storage system strategy anchored by newly developed sodium-ion batteries.
GM’s Sterling Anderson said in prepared remarks that "We see a future where electric vehicles, batteries that power them, and the country’s power grids work together," and GM said it will release a firmware update to give vehicle-to-home system customers the ability to send energy back to the grid.
The Verge said GM currently has "over 250,000 bidirectional-capable Chevy, Cadillac, and GMC EVs on American roads today," and GM claimed their combined battery capacity is enough to power 120,000 homes for up to an entire week.
GM said it is testing the approach in Northern California with PG&E to develop a localized fleet of 52,000 EVs for "grid balancing protocols," and in Michigan with DTE Energy to "stress-test" bidirectional charging using 30 of its own employees’ homes.
Fortune reported that GM is pitching itself as a distributed utility at GM Empower, while Kurt Kelty wrote that "In grid-scale stationary storage systems, if we can make the cell safer and more robust, we can remove complexity elsewhere in the system."
