Cost and performance analysis as a valuable tool for battery material research

Cost and performance analysis is a powerful tool to support material research for battery energy storage, but it is rarely applied in the field and often misinterpreted. Widespread use of such an analysis at the stage of material discovery would help to focus battery research on practical solutions. When correctly used and well detailed, it can effectively direct efforts towards selecting appropriate materials for commercial applications. Using sodium-ion batteries as an example, we simulate the energy density and the cost of battery packs with several sodium-ion cathode materials taken from the literature in three case studies that illustrate how to identify the most promising solutions from the results of the model. Using publicly available information on material properties and open-source software, we demonstrate how a battery cost and performance analysis could be implemented using typical data from laboratory-scale studies on new energy storage materials. Cost and performance analysis, if applied properly, can guide the research of new energy storage materials. In three case studies on sodium-ion batteries, this Perspective illustrates how to implement this type of analysis at the battery material discovery phase to identify the most promising active materials and treatments.