As of the end of February, Nio had 587 battery swap stations and more than 27,000 charging piles participating in grid load regulation in 14 provinces and cities.
(Image credit: Nio)
Nio (NYSE: NIO) has begun efforts to have battery swap stations located in highway service areas interact with the grid, following previous efforts in cities.
On March 18, Nio put a new battery swap station, which supports battery swap and energy storage, into operation at the Zhijiang West service area along the G50 Shanghai-Chongqing highway.
The station can provide battery swap services to vehicles and also respond to grid dispatch commands to reverse discharge power to the grid, and is the first of its kind to be located along a highway, according to a statement from Nio yesterday.
This helps improve the stability of the grid, compensates for the random, volatile weaknesses of local clean energy, and helps the grid consume clean energy, Nio said.
The station is connected to a photovoltaic (PV) system in the service area and can consume more than 1,300 kWh of green power from PV generation per day, according to the company.
It also offers a number of features including dynamic load balancing, dynamic capacity augmentation, and internal emergency power backup, Nio said.
The battery swap station was built by Nio and highway operator Hubei Chutian Smart Communication, which will work together to improve the energy replenishment network along the highways in Hubei, according to Nio.
Nio's distributed battery swap stations help vehicle owners quickly replace batteries with fully charged ones, and also serve as small-scale energy storage facilities.
In August 2022, amid China's summer power crunch, 108 Nio battery swap stations participated in their cities' efforts to cut peak loads on the grid.
By the end of February 2024, Nio had 587 battery swap stations and more than 27,000 charging piles in 14 provinces and cities participating in load regulation on the grid, with a total capacity of about 300,000 kW, the company said.
Nio is exploring similar efforts in overseas markets as well.
On February 25, Nio's vice president Shen Fei said Nio's only battery swap station in Denmark has begun to provide frequency regulation services to the grid to help stabilize its operation.
As of today, Nio has 2,390 battery swap stations in China, 785 of which are located along highways, according to data monitored by CnEVPost.
The company also has 2,184 supercharging stations in China offering 9,988 charging piles, as well as 1,545 destination charging stations offering 11,689 charging piles.
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