In a new guest contribution for IPE D.A.CH, Dario Bertagna, Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of Clean Energy, examines a structural risk facing Europe's battery storage build-out. As the continent scales up battery capacity to cut its reliance on fossil fuel imports, nearly the entire lithium-iron-phosphate supply chain runs through China. Dario argues that sodium-ion technology offers a credible Western alternative — it needs no lithium or cobalt and draws on a more geographically diverse raw-material base — but a cost gap versus LFP remains. Unless European and US manufacturers scale up sodium-ion capacity now, the continent risks trading one energy dependency for another.
Article available (in German) here.