Taiwan-based battery swapping ecosystems provider Gogoro Inc. has partnered with India-based automotive systems manufacturer Belrise Industries to invest approximately $2.5 billion over eight years with the State of Maharashtra government to build energy infrastructure across the state.
Both parties said in a statement that they have signed the non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreement to set up a 50-50 partnership for the venture.
According to the statement, the companies plan to build a smart energy infrastructure in Maharashtra that is open and accessible and establishes battery swapping and smart battery stations as a leading source for mobility and energy storage.
The deployment is also expected to accelerate job growth throughout the smart energy, electric vehicle, and sustainability value chain.
In addition to the smart infrastructure, the partnership is also expected to foster smart electric vehicle manufacturing and assembly in the state.
“It is indeed a remarkable moment for the State, this will perhaps be the largest green partnership of this nature worldwide,” said Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri. Eknath Shinde.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said as a national leader in sustainability, it is important for the state of Maharashtra to embrace new technologies that are open, accessible and enable dynamic solutions that can accelerate the transition to smarter sustainable cities and set an example that other states in India can follow.
“We are partnering with Gogoro and Belrise to deploy the world’s largest and most innovative smart energy infrastructure to utilize battery swapping for solving the unique and distributed energy challenges we face daily. This project will enable new alternatives to the fossil fuels solutions many of our residents use today,” he added.
Gogoro Founder and Chief Executive Officer Horace Luke said the future of smart sustainable cities and countries is not about a single company or government but about a community coming together to instill a new way of thinking and a new way of utilizing sustainable energy in an open and accessible way.
“This partnership represents the future and this new way of thinking – not just about sustainable transportation, but about an entirely new system. That is why we truly believe in building open and accessible infrastructure that will uplift the entire ecosystem,
“Together, the State of Maharashtra, Belrise Industries and Gogoro plan to shift energy usage and establish this new sustainable economy that will encourage jobs creation, establish new technical and sustainable industrial capabilities, and ultimately increase state exports,” he added.
According to the statement, the battery swapping infrastructure expects to begin deploying across the State of Maharashtra in 2023 which will leverage Gogoro’s smart energy ecosystem including smart battery stations, swapping technologies, network management solutions.
It will provide numerous innovations to the state, contributing in the areas of smart city design and development, energy storage stations & systems, smart mobility sharing, smart electric vehicles, demand response services and distributed energy storage, smart agriculture, among other applications.
“Clean energy is the future, and now is the time for Indian businesses to begin their transition to a new model of sustainable operations,” said Shrikant Badve, Managing Director, Belrise Industries.
“As a manufacturing leader in India’s transportation industry, we are embracing this for our own business, customers, and communities,
“Today we are partnering with Gogoro, a global innovation leader in smart sustainable energy and India’s most industrious state of Maharashtra to deploy the largest portable battery swapping infrastructure of its kind to enable a new generation of products and services that Maharashtra’s residents can embrace,” he added.
With more than 120 million residents, Maharashtra is India’s largest economy and industrialized State with a gross domestic product of more than US$450 billion that accounts for 16-percent of India’s industrial output.
Founded in 2011 to rethink urban energy and inspire the world to move through cities in smarter and more sustainable ways, Gogoro leverages the power of innovation to change the way urban energy is distributed and consumed.
Gogoro Network is a new generation of distributed smart energy infrastructure that is optimized for swappable battery refueling and architected for intelligent bidirectional demand response and energy storage that is a key building block of a smart grid.
Gogoro is currently a leader in battery swapping, energy storage, connected vehicles, electric propulsion systems, smart battery design, and advanced cloud services that utilize artificial intelligence to manage battery availability and safety.
Belrise Group is a leading Tier-1 automotive system manufacturer in India that accounts for one third of all two-wheel and three-wheel chassis made in India.
With consolidated group revenue of $700 milion, Belrise Group has 29 state-of-the-art facilities across India that specialize in automotive component manufacturing for the 2-wheeler, 3-wheeler and 4-wheeler passenger, and commercial vehicle segments.
The company’s diverse product portfolio includes metal fabrication, polymer processing, foundry, mirror and suspensions systems, amongst others.
With the evolution of electric vehicles (EVs), Belrise group is geared up to offer products for the entire product ecosystem in the EV value chain.