CSG Energy Storage Technology and NIO Power Join Hands in VPP and Battery Swap

Shanghai, China, February 26, 2024 - Southern Power Generation (Guangdong) Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd. ("CSG Energy Storage Technology") and NIO Energy Investment (Hubei) Co., Ltd. ("NIO Power") entered into a framework cooperation agreement in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. Witnessed by Liu Guogang, Chairman and Party Secretary of China Southern Power Grid Energy Storage Co., Ltd. ("CSG Energy Storage"), and William Li, Founder, Chairman and CEO of NIO, Wang Zhiqiang, Chairman of CSG Energy Storage Technology, and Shen Fei, Senior Vice President of NIO, signed the agreement. Li Dinglin, General Manager and Deputy Party Secretary of CSG Energy Storage, Lu Wensheng, Deputy General Manager and member of the Party Committee of CSG Energy Storage, Harry He, Head of NIO Power System Management, and Hu Weifeng, Head of NIO Power V2G attended the ceremony.

According to the agreement, in the principle of "mutual benefits, complementary strengths and shared development", CSG Energy Storage Technology and NIO Power will give full play to their respective advantages, and comprehensively cooperate in fields such as virtual power plants (VPP), battery swap stations, and battery cascade utilization and recycling, so as to better aggregate and coordinate resources like charging and swapping stations, energy storage stations, and controllable loads onto the VPP platform to provide load shifting, frequency regulation and demand response services to the power grid, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of asset operations. The two parties will also jointly select appropriate locations and install battery swap stations, which will not only improve the accessibility of battery swap service, but also promote the commercial adaptation of battery swap stations as a distributed energy storage system.

As a new type of power coordination and management system, the VPP is critical for achieving flexible bi-directional control of the power system. Enabled by communications technologies, IoT and software algorithms, VPPs are able to aggregate, coordinate and optimize charging and swapping facilities, solar panels, energy storage systems and microgrids distributed in different locations, to realize optimal resource utilization.

As the population of new energy vehicle grows, policy guidance has been set to strengthen the NEV-grid integration and interaction via charging and swapping facilities. With vehicle batteries acting as a controllable load or a mobile energy storage unit, a two-way vehicle-grid interaction mechanism can be established to expedite the building of a new power system.

As the first to build a megawatt-level lithium battery energy storage station in China, CSG Energy Storage currently manages nine electrochemical energy storage stations, and has accumulated industry-leading experience in integrated solar-storage-charging stations, reutilization of power batteries, and other areas of vehicle-grid interaction. The installed capacity of its new-type energy storage system will increase by 2 million kilowatts, 3 million kilowatts and 5 million kilowatts during the 14th, 15th and 16th Five-Year Plans respectively.

NIO's Power Swap Stations are the first intelligent microgrid distributed battery swapping system in China, capable of participating in effective grid regulation through order forecast and real-time assessment of charging loads. In 2019, NIO already helped with the load shifting in Shanghai by coordinating its Power Swap Stations and home chargers connected to the NIO Power Cloud. In addition, NIO has joined many pilot programs where it cooperated with the local power grid, energy and utility companies to promote the application of VPPs in the electricity ancillary service market.

With technologies including quantum cryptography and 5G network slicing, NIO's Power Swap Stations are capable of responding to the regulation and control instructions of a VPP in seconds. On top of that, NIO Power now joins hands with CSG Energy Storage in further improving the regulation and control capabilities of flexible resources like EVs, and participating in the electricity market via VPPs more efficiently.

"Over the past years, CSG Energy Storage has accumulated rich experience and achieved fruitful results in energy digitalization, green energy consumption and construction of new power systems," said Dr. Fei Shen, Senior Vice President of NIO. "As the first EV brand in China to participate in the energy dispatching with VPPs, NIO's Power Swap Stations are capable of load shifting and frequency regulation, which has been proven in multiple regions in China. Next, NIO is to join hands with CSG Energy Storage to give full play to our respective advantages in technologies and operations, and help achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality targets."

Dong Chao, General Manager of CSG Energy Storage Technology, said, "CSG Energy Storage has been dedicated to the construction of large-capacity centralized energy storage power stations. As new energy vehicles develop, flexible and distributed energy storage is needed to improve the service capacity of the power distribution network. This cooperation will push forward battery swap stations as distributed energy storage facilities in the VPP business, providing flexible and intelligent load shifting, frequency regulation and demand response services, so as to facilitate the integration and interaction between NEVs and the grid."

So far, NIO has installed 2,375 Power Swap Stations and 21,603 public NIO Chargers in China. As of the end of this February, 587 Power Swap Stations and over 27,000 chargers have participated the demand response and peak shaving ancillary services in 14 provinces and cities in China with a total load shifting capacity of around 300,000 kilowatts.

In the five provinces and autonomous region in southern China, namely, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hainan, NIO has installed 373 Power Swap Stations and 3,944 public NIO Chargers. The cooperation with China Southern Power Grid Energy Storage is expected to accelerate the development of battery swap network and deepen the joint contributions to a new power system. In the future, the two will keep exploring standards for vehicle-grid integration and interaction, so that more NEVs can participate in and benefit from grid interaction.

About NIO

NIO is a global smart electric vehicle company. Founded on November 25, 2014, NIO’s mission is to shape a joyful lifestyle by offering high-performance smart electric vehicles and ultimate user experience. NIO operates R&D centers and manufacturing facilities in Shanghai, Hefei, Beijing, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, San Jose, Munich, Oxford, Berlin, Budapest and Singapore, and has established sales and service networks in China, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark, providing products and services to users in over 300 cities worldwide.

In 2015, NIO Formula E team won the inaugural FIA Formula E Drivers' Championship. In 2016, NIO launched the EP9, one of the world's fastest electric vehicles. In 2017, NIO unveiled its vision car, EVE. On June 28, 2018, NIO began deliveries of the ES8, a 7-seater smart electric flagship SUV, in China. On September 12, 2018, NIO went public on NYSE. On March 10, 2022, NIO was listed on HKEX. On May 20, 2022, NIO was successfully listed on SGX.

NIO's lineup consists of the flagship smart electric SUV All-New ES8, flagship smart electric coupe SUV EC7, smart electric mid-to-large SUV ES7 (or EL7), flagship smart electric sedan ET7, versatile smart electric SUV All-New ES6 (or EL6), smart electric coupe SUV All-New EC6, smart electric sedan ET5, smart electric tourer ET5T, and smart electric executive flagship ET9.

Media Contact:

Emma Hai

emma.hai@nio.com