Taiwan’s Battery-Swapping Stations Now Double As Mini Power Plants
Around 2,500 of Gogoro’s stations for electric two- and three-wheelers will be able to provide power to the grid when demand spikes.
A woman removes a Gogoro Inc. battery from a charging station in Taipei, Taiwan, on Monday, Jan. 22, 2018.
Photographer: Billy H.C. Kwok/BloombergGogoro Inc., a Taipei-based company whose battery-swapping stations serve electric moped drivers across Taiwan, said on Tuesday that it has converted roughly 20% of those stations into “virtual power plants” capable of sending spare electricity back to the grid.
Since it was founded in 2015, Gogoro has opened more than 12,000 stations with batteries that can be changed out on the fly, giving drivers of electric mopeds and three-wheelers the ability to add dozens of miles of range without losing time on charging. The company says it has more than 500,000 monthly active users, and over 260 swaps taking place on its network every minute. Some 2,500 Gogoro stations have been converted into VPPs capable of storing up to 150 megawatt hours of electricity collectively — enough, it says, to power 500 local households for a month.