Huayang New Material Technology Group's first group of mass-produced 1GWh sodium ion cell production lines was recently put into operation in the city of Yangquan, North China's Shanxi province.

Once at full production capacity, the production lines will be able to produce 40 million cylindrical steel-shell cells and 980,000 square aluminum-shell cells, with the total production capacity reaching 1GWh, according to Wang Mingju, deputy general manager of Huayang's new energy storage new material business department.

In recent years, Huayang has boosted efforts to develop new energy projects and has built a full industrial chain as well as a sodium ion industrial cluster.

Sodium ion batteries have many advantages, such as low-cost raw materials, a long cycle life, high energy-conversion efficiency, and high-safety performance. The sodium ion battery has a wide range of application prospects in future vehicle operations and large-scale energy storage.

Suzhou Hanchuan Intelligent Technology Co, a professional new-energy intelligent equipment R&D and manufacturing company, is likely to cooperate with Huayang on heavy-duty truck electricity charging. 

Lin Haijun, special assistant to the chairman of Suzhou Hanchuan Intelligent Technology Co, said that if 10,000 of the 50,000 heavy-duty trucks in Yangquan are upgraded into new energy trucks annually, 300 power charge stations, 12,000 sets of power battery packs and 3GWh of cells will be needed and 10 billion yuan ($1.39 billion) in economic value will be created.

In addition, the upgrading of heavy-duty trucks will reduce the consumption of diesel by about 400 million liters, emissions of 1 million metric tons of carbon, 12,000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 80 tons of particulate matters every year, greatly improving the local environment.