A review of 2024 and predictions for an exciting year ahead: Trump, new factories, and ruthless competition

It’s been a transformative year for LiNa.

Maybe closest to home for me - we became more and more commercial, taking tech from the lab and putting it into customer hands. We delivered our first pilot projects to Mumbai and Delhi, and we completed testing with ACWA Power. And we were rewarded for it, converting our commercial pipeline into first offtake and moving forwards towards profitability – a very important concept sometimes forgotten in cleantech and deeptech!

This evolution, from the lab to the wider world, is a big one. It means we are now in a position to pursue greater scale. Having secured the site, completed endless vendor and equipment trials, and then completing factory acceptance testing, we are about to cut the ribbon on our own first-of-its-kind automated electrolyte manufacturing line. Our first, fully fledged factory is just months away. Another significant milestone.

But perhaps what I’m most proud of — and, really, this underpins everything that the team has achieved — is that we’ve stayed true to our core: the technology, and the persistence of our efforts to continue to break new ground as we rise above challenge after challenge with determination.

Taking a step back and surveying the bigger picture, as the transition from one year to the next encourages us to do, means seeing that our progress is, undeniably, ticking ever upwards. We are testing the best cells we’ve ever made and I believe Team LiNa has the best sodium metal chloride experts in the industry. In 2025, our core offering will get hint bigger — and better.

When I look back to the founding of LiNa, as a university spin-out in 2017, I’m struck by the profound vision that was its origin.

At the time, lithium-ion batteries were still primarily being slotted into cameras and other consumer electronics. Electric vehicle adoption was in its nascency.

The idea of putting thousands of battery cells into boxes and connecting them to the grid to pull down renewable energy was niche, and to many little more than an abstract pipedream.

That vision doesn’t seem so fanciful now – quite the opposite.

The game has changed. Solar electrons have never been cheaper, storage technology never so advanced, and developing markets around the world are priming themselves to benefit from this paradigm shift. Innovation in batteries has provided the missing piece of the equation — being able to connect up that ultra-cheap solar into something that actually enables us to replace the utility of coal and hydrocarbons — and will supercharge growth in the global south.

It also bears reflecting on the fact that, while we’ve had a great year at LiNa, there have been plenty of tough signals from the wider energy storage industry. The UK still lags behind in its gigafactory ambitions, and the collapse of Northvolt sent out significant shockwaves.

These factors simply emphasise the position that we are in, and cement my belief that batteries are the rocket science sector of our generation: the stakes so high, margins for error so tight, and complexity level so fiendishly difficult that those in search of an easy ride need not apply. I’m immensely proud to see LiNa, despite the size of this challenge, continuing to show up, compete, and, often, punch well above our weight — all on our own terms. Taking our technology as a given, what sets us apart is the tenacity and the true grit, the won’t-quit attitude, that is fundamental to our deep tech approach.

Don’t worry, this won’t just be an ode to how great my team is - although they deserve it. Let’s get to some predictions for the coming year.

1.????? The battery industry will continue to be ruthless — but as important as ever. No easy rides here.

An opportunity of this size attracts a lot of competition, which means there’s no room for simply getting lucky or scraping by. Success will require constant tenacity. And the bar set for new technologies to take hold will only get higher.

2.????? Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells will stay below the $40/kWh price mark for the time being.

We have a significant oversupply and no means to stockpile with many factories fresh and far from paid off. And while I expect we’ll see the lithium oversupply being corrected, we won’t necessarily see the signs of that balancing out in the market, or impacts of export restrictions, on pricing until 2026 and beyond.

3.????? Early-stage players in the market will need to work with the industry mainstays to take a slice of market share.

It’s going to be a tough environment for independent first-timers trying to fund or build gigafactories; those start-ups will be edged out by established players forming partnerships with new technology manufacturers as a means to differentiate long-term market position amongst a glut undifferentiated LFP.

4.????? Trump’s approach to China will have big ripples — but China will continue to dominate in batteries

I’m not going to be so bold as to try to predict what Donald Trump will do in his first year back in office, with Elon Musk at his side. But whatever happens — be it trade wars or coal subsidies — it won’t knock China’s battery prowess or the increasing global awareness and appreciation for it. We will be watching closely, of course.

5.????? With the table set, players across the sector will push to introduce bolder but targeted innovations.

To meet the high bar that the industry has set for itself, we’re going to see people pushing the envelope but also being more targeted. As electrification spreads, we have countless use cases and environments that we didn’t have last year. I predict that successful innovation will pick their niche in this haystack, rather than try and overthrow LFP in everything. LiNa will be no different.

We’ll have plenty of news on the way: more pilots, new geographies, automated manufacturing, and of course the next generation of our battery cells – something I am really excited to share with you.

Stay tuned!