Taiwanese two-wheeler battery swapping firm Gogoro wants to return energy to Taiwan’s electrical system and generate money.
Two thousand five hundred of its GoStations in Taiwan will be integrated into Enel X’s Virtual Power Plant (VPP).
A VPP is a group of small-scale energy resources integrated with grid operations to provide reliable and economical energy to the grid.
Taiwan Power Company, Taiwan’s public utility, receives power from Enel X. The state is helping Enel X’s VPP reach net-zero emissions in 2050. Taiwan intends to shift its energy system by boosting 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,” stated Gogoro CEO and founder Horace Luke. In addition, it establishes a new revenue source for Gogoro beyond mobility and is the first time this technology has been utilized in this manner.
VP of Communications Jason Gordon says Gogoro’s stations carry roughly 2-gigawatt hours. Enel X will integrate 2,500 GoStations with 150-megawatt hours of battery storage.
The formal agreement follows Gogoro’s 2022 experiment, which incorporated 10 GoStations into Enel X’s VPP. Gogoro said the experiment showed that the company’s network could securely suspend charging during a grid imbalance or return energy to the grid without disrupting battery-swapping clients.
By connecting Enel X hardware to Gogoro’s network and Enel’s grid management software, the businesses have converted roughly 1,300 GoStations in over 500 sites into VPP nodes this month. By midyear, 2,500 GoStations will be in 1,000 locations.
Enel X’s VPP helps stabilize the grid and gives Gogoro a new revenue stream outside mobility. Gordon says Enel X pays Gogoro or gives it discounts for energy it sells back to the network and when it pauses energy at its stations.
