Back in 2015, Gogoro proposed creating a network of battery exchange stations so that users of his smart electric scooter would not worry about autonomy or recharging. Now, seven years later, the company operates thousands of them and has partnered with Enel X to make the network work as virtual power plants in Taiwan.
“We are entering a new era of smart energy infrastructure, and by integrating the Gogoro Grid with the Enel X Virtual Power Plant (VPP) in Taiwan, we are able to offer a new energy resource,” said Horace Luke, founder and CEO of Gogoro. . “This is the first time this technology has been implemented in this way in the world and creates a new revenue stream for Gogoro, beyond mobility.”
The basic idea is to make Gogoro’s battery hubs dynamically stop charging their coupled batteries and return stored energy to the grid when demand is high or imbalance is detected. Once the network is level again, a signal is sent to the Gogoro Network and the upload is restarted.
Gogoro and Enel X conducted a pilot test last year to test the configuration and found that the network of battery sharing stations involved in the test successfully performed these services without causing disruption to Gogoro Network’s battery sharing customers, which which shows that the grid is ideal and can be a good resource to support Taiwan’s energy transition.”
Now, the association has announced the deployment of almost 1,300 GoStations in more than 500 locations in Taiwan. Their number is expected to exceed 2,500 across 1,000 locations in 20223, although how this will translate into potential combined capacity has not been disclosed.
Enel X currently operates the largest virtual power plant in Taiwan and views setups like this as a resource that will help balance the intermittency of large-scale renewable power plants as the country moves to decarbonise its power generation.
Taiwan Power Corporation predicts that the power sharing economy will be worth tens of billions of New Taiwan dollars, and calls for more companies to participate in its Power Trading Platform through professional aggregators like Enel X and “work together.” to achieve the Taiwan target. future of renewable energy.
For now, Taiwan is the place that houses the vast majority of GoStations, but Gogoro operates in other countries, where this VPP model could be replicated. Of course, for now Gogoro has not yet revealed any plans for the global expansion of the project.
Source: Gogoro
