China Southern Power Grid Energy Storage will work with Nio Power in areas including battery banks, battery swap stations, and virtual power plants.

(Image credit: Nio)

Nio Power, the power arm of Nio (NYSE: NIO), has signed a cooperation agreement with the energy storage arm of Chinese grid operator China Southern Power Grid to work together in areas including battery banks and battery swap stations.

Shanghai-listed China Southern Power Grid Energy Storage Co Ltd said in an announcement today that one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries signed a cooperation framework agreement on February 26 in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, with NIO Energy Investment (Hubei) Co Ltd (Nio Power).

Nio Power is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nio and its legal representative is Shen Fei, Nio's vice president for power business.

The following are the contents of the cooperation mentioned in the announcement:

1. Cooperation on investment and management of battery banks.

Cooperation in battery bank business, to promote the standardization of electric vehicle battery swap battery, power battery operation and management, battery operation data sharing and data asset operation.

2. Battery secondary utilization and recycling.

Based on the purpose of promoting the whole life cycle management of power batteries, the two sides will jointly carry out research on the secondary utilization of power batteries and recycling of power batteries, look for suitable application scenarios, and explore business models that can be promoted and applied.

3. Battery swap station cooperation.

Select suitable places to invest in the construction of battery swap stations for electric vehicles, and promote the commercial application of these stations as distributed energy storage while enhancing the convenience of the battery swap service.

Jointly promote the standardization of battery swap, the patent research and development of battery swap stations and the opening of battery swap patents.

Carry out battery swap stations operation data sharing and data asset operation.

4. Virtual power plant project cooperation.

Promote charging stations, battery swap stations, energy storage stations, adjustable loads and other aggregated resources to access the virtual power plant platform to provide peak shifting, frequency regulation and demand-side response services for the power grid.

5. Equity investment cooperation.

Study and carry out equity investment cooperation to support the infrastructure construction of charging and battery swap, and better meet the demand for replenishment of the electric vehicle industry.

Nio later announced the partnership as well, saying that William Li, the company's founder, chairman and CEO, witnessed the signing with Liu Guogang, chairman of China Southern Power Grid Energy Storage.

China Southern Power Grid Energy Storage is the builder of China's first megawatt-scale lithium battery energy storage station, and currently has nine electrochemical energy storage stations under construction and management, according to Nio's statement.

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