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CATL's five-year MOU with German integrator Intilion covers Tener Sodium systems in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, but names no price, first-delivery date or site.
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An Intilion battery storage project under construction. It is not the sodium-ion systems covered in the MOU, which has no named site.
Image: Intilion
Source · Press image from the Intilion website, used for news reporting.
CATL signed a memorandum of understanding with German storage integrator Intilion to deploy 3 GWh of sodium-ion energy storage systems in Europe over five years, CnEVPost reported on Oct. 28.
The companies plan to install CATL's Tener Sodium systems in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, for grid-scale and commercial and industrial projects. Gasgoo, citing a post on CATL's WeChat account, said the MOU builds on an existing partnership: the two have delivered more than 30 storage projects in Germany since 2022. CATL said the partners will keep pursuing both sodium-ion and lithium-ion deployments.
For grid operators and data-center developers in German-speaking Europe, the point is a second chemistry on the supply list. Sodium-ion avoids lithium price exposure, and CATL says the system is dimensionally compatible with lithium-ion, so a site could in principle swap chemistry without redesigning its layout. Averaged over five years, 3 GWh is a modest 0.6 GWh a year, so this is a route to market rather than a volume shock. Voltgrid News also reported on Peak Energy's Series B round.
CATL says the system delivers a cycle life above 15,000 cycles and 25 years of stable operation, while holding high discharge power at -20°C (-4°F). It pitches those traits at frequency regulation on European grids. These are the vendor's figures; the report gives no test conditions, and no independent data has been published alongside them. CATL unveiled Tener Sodium on June 22 as what it called the first field-validated sodium-ion storage product.
At 3 GWh, the Intilion MOU is smaller than the Alfen and HyperStrong deals, CnEVPost reported.
Illustration (AI-generated)
The Intilion deal follows two earlier European agreements, according to CnEVPost. In July CATL signed an MOU with Alfen N.V. for 5 GWh of sodium-ion storage in Western Europe, starting in 2027, and a 2 GWh Tener Sodium agreement with Eastern European developer Solarpro. In China, CATL signed a three-year supply agreement in April with HyperStrong for 60 GWh of sodium-ion batteries for storage. Voltgrid also covered CATL's lithium-based work in Germany, where it is building Giga Storage's 1.4 GWh battery in Lower Saxony.
The market backdrop is growth. SNE Research data cited by CnEVPost puts European lithium-ion storage battery shipments at 72.7 GWh in the first half of 2026, up 74% year on year. CATL's global lithium-ion storage shipments reached 125.0 GWh over the same period, up 81%, for a 27.1% share.
An MOU is not a purchase order. None of the reports gives a price, a first-delivery date, a named site or the split of the 3 GWh by year or country. The cycle-life and low-temperature figures remain CATL's claims. Watch for the first named Intilion project that specifies Tener Sodium, and for whether the 3 GWh converts into contracted orders.
