Chinese battery maker CATL has signed a 2 gigawatt-hour (GWh) agreement with Solarpro to deploy a sodium-ion energy storage project in Central and Eastern Europe this year.

The deal covers CATL’s TENER Sodium Energy Storage System, which the company markets for grid projects with one to eight hours of storage and more than 30 megawatt-hours of rated capacity.

CATL said the installation would be the first large-scale sodium-ion energy storage project in Central and Eastern Europe.

Solarpro has designed, built, and integrated over 12 gigawatts of solar capacity and more than 1 gigawatt-hour of battery storage systems.

Its projects in Bulgaria and Hungary show it already has a battery storage presence in Eastern Europe.

The agreement came as large battery storage in the region could grow 5x by 2030.

Sodium-ion batteries are still at an earlier stage than lithium iron phosphate batteries, with Wood Mackenzie estimating average 2025 costs at US$59 per kilowatt-hour vs. US$52 per kilowatt-hour for lithium iron phosphate batteries.

🔗 Source: Yicai