When an earthquake rocked Taiwan, hundreds of Gogoro’s battery-swap stations automatically stopped drawing electricity to stabilize the grid.
**From the article:**Â
On the morning of April 3, Taiwan was hit by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake. Seconds later, hundreds of battery-swap stations in Taiwan sensed something else: the power frequency of the electric grid took a sudden drop, a signal that some power plants had been disconnected in the disaster. The grid was now struggling to meet energy demand.Â
These stations, built by the Taiwanese company Gogoro for electric-powered two-wheeled vehicles like scooters, mopeds, and bikes, reacted immediately. According to numbers provided by the company, 590 Gogoro battery-swap locations (some of which have more than one swap station) stopped drawing electricity from the grid, lowering local demand by a total six megawatts—enough to power thousands of homes. It took 12 minutes for the grid to recover, and the battery-swap stations then resumed normal operation.
Gogoro is not the only company working on battery-swapping for electric scooters, but it’s certainly one of the most successful. Founded in 2011, the firm has a network of over 12,500 stations across Taiwan and boasts over 600,000 monthly subscribers who pay to swap batteries in and out when required. Each station is roughly the size of two vending machines and can hold around 30 scooter batteries.
How is this noteworthy? Disconnecting variable loads off the grid when there’s a shortage of supply is standard practice. That this load happened to be battery swap stations isn’t special.
Now, if those swap stations had supplied power *back* to the grid fromtheir batteries in order to help stabilize it – *that* would have been noteworth.
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When an earthquake rocked Taiwan, hundreds of Gogoro’s battery-swap stations automatically stopped drawing electricity to stabilize the grid.
**From the article:**Â
On the morning of April 3, Taiwan was hit by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake. Seconds later, hundreds of battery-swap stations in Taiwan sensed something else: the power frequency of the electric grid took a sudden drop, a signal that some power plants had been disconnected in the disaster. The grid was now struggling to meet energy demand.Â
These stations, built by the Taiwanese company Gogoro for electric-powered two-wheeled vehicles like scooters, mopeds, and bikes, reacted immediately. According to numbers provided by the company, 590 Gogoro battery-swap locations (some of which have more than one swap station) stopped drawing electricity from the grid, lowering local demand by a total six megawatts—enough to power thousands of homes. It took 12 minutes for the grid to recover, and the battery-swap stations then resumed normal operation.
Gogoro is not the only company working on battery-swapping for electric scooters, but it’s certainly one of the most successful. Founded in 2011, the firm has a network of over 12,500 stations across Taiwan and boasts over 600,000 monthly subscribers who pay to swap batteries in and out when required. Each station is roughly the size of two vending machines and can hold around 30 scooter batteries.
Now the company is putting the battery network to another use: Gogoro has been working with Enel X, an Italian company, to incorporate the stations into [a virtual power plant system that helps the Taiwanese grid stay more resilient in emergencies](https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/07/1087836/how-virtual-power-plants-are-shaping-tomorrows-energy-system/) like April’s earthquake.Â
How is this noteworthy? Disconnecting variable loads off the grid when there’s a shortage of supply is standard practice. That this load happened to be battery swap stations isn’t special.
Now, if those swap stations had supplied power *back* to the grid fromtheir batteries in order to help stabilize it – *that* would have been noteworth.