Gogoro’s battery-swapping stations in Taiwan are now virtual power plants

Taiwanese two-wheeler battery swapping company Gogoro has a plan to give energy back to Taiwan’s electrical grid and make money while doing it.

The company is partnering with Enel X, an energy services provider, to integrate 2,500 of its GoStations in Taiwan into Enel X’s Virtual Power Plant (VPP).

A VPP is a collection of small-scale energy resources that have been joined together and coordinated with grid operations in order to provide the grid with reliable and affordable sources of energy.

In this case, Enel X is providing power back to Taiwan Power Company, Taiwan’s public electric utility. The state is supporting Enel X’s VPP as it works to reach net-zero emissions in 2050. One way Taiwan hopes to implement its energy transition is through improving energy system resilience.

“We are entering a new era of smart energy infrastructure, and by integrating the Gogoro Network with the Enel X Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in Taiwan, we are providing a new energy resource,” said Horace Luke, Gogoro’s CEO and founder, in a statement. “It is the first time this technology has been deployed this way in the world, and it creates a new Gogoro revenue stream beyond mobility.”

Gogoro’s stations collectively hold nearly 2 gigawatt hours, according to Jason Gordon, Gogoro’s VP of communications. The capacity of the 2,500 GoStations that will be part of the Enel X integration is about 150 megawatt hours of battery capacity.

The formal partnership is an extension of a pilot that was completed in 2022, in which Gogoro integrated 10 of its GoStations into Enel X’s VPP. Gogoro said the pilot demonstrated that the company’s network could safely pause charging during a grid imbalance or provide energy back to the grid as required without causing any interruptions to battery-swapping customers.

This month, the companies have converted nearly 1,300 GoStations across more than 500 locations into VPP nodes by attaching a piece of hardware from Enel X that connects Gogoro’s network with Enel’s grid management software. The plan is to get to 2,500 GoStations across 1,000 locations by midyear.

Being a part of Enel X’s VPP not only helps ensure a more stable grid, but it also provides Gogoro with a new revenue stream outside of mobility. Enel X either pays Gogoro outright or gives the company discounts for energy it sells back to the network, as well as when Gogoro pauses energy at its stations, according to Gordon.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the amount of capacity Gogoro’s entire battery system in Taiwan has. 

Gogoro’s battery-swapping stations in Taiwan are now virtual power plants by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch