At two o'clock in the night, the city quieted down. In a NIO battery swapping station on the outskirts, more than 20 batteries are slowly being recharged in a constant temperature chamber, waiting to be replaced in the car after dawn; At the same time, wind farms hundreds of kilometers away are experiencing the peak period of the day, with wind turbines operating at full capacity but not all electricity being able to be delivered.

On the one hand, we need to save electricity during low electricity price periods, and on the other hand, we need to find users willing to pay for green electricity in the long term. In the past, these two things were handled separately. On October 28, 2026, NIO and CGN signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Shanghai, connecting two previously unrelated networks together. Around the three major directions of zero carbon management, green power, and energy services, a car company's energy replenishment network and a central power generation company's clean energy assets are trying to breathe at the same pace.

First, settle a carbon account

Electric vehicles run without exhaust, but the details of where the electricity comes from, how the batteries are made, and how the factory discharges them have always been difficult to calculate. This time, CGN will leverage its professional advantages in electric carbon assets and digital intelligence platforms to provide NIO with carbon asset management and carbon emission accounting services, and support the construction of zero carbon factories and zero carbon parks. For NIO, this is not just a carbon report, but an extension of the carbon account from the energy replenishment link to the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, laying a data foundation for zero carbon certification.

Green current enters the battery swapping station

The real change in electricity consumption structure is green electricity. According to the agreement, CGN will prioritize matching green electricity and green certificates for NIO in areas where electricity market transactions have already been conducted, supporting NIO in building a green charging and swapping network and zero carbon products.

The volume on both sides is not small. As of October 28th, NIO has built 9715 charging and swapping stations covering the whole country, including 4202 swapping stations, 5513 charging stations, and 31831 charging piles. The cumulative completion of swapping has exceeded 129 million times, and the total number of charging and swapping services has exceeded 230 million times; As of the end of June 2026, CGN's equity installed capacity reached 10958.8 megawatts, of which wind and solar power accounted for 68.9% of the total. On one hand, there is a stable and predictable electricity consumption curve, and on the other hand, there are green electricity resources and green certificate quotas that can be connected. However, the habit of centralized charging at night at the exchange station coincides with the period of wind power generation.

Reverse power transmission from the battery swapping station

The third block has more room for imagination. Both parties will jointly promote the participation of charging and swapping stations and new energy vehicles in the electricity market and vehicle network interaction business, and rely on NIO's BaaS model and large-scale battery assets to cooperate in the hierarchical utilization of power batteries and the operation of user side energy storage stations.

There is a battery stored in the battery swapping station all year round, which is already a ready-made energy storage unit. NIO has become the first domestic automotive company to participate in frequency regulation services in the electricity market on a regular basis, with a total of 860 battery swapping stations connected to virtual power plants, responding to power grid dispatch in more than ten provinces and cities; In Suzhou, 68 battery swapping stations have been connected to a new power load management system, forming a charging and swapping virtual power plant with a regulating capacity of 20000 kilowatts, which can respond within ten seconds after receiving instructions. According to the plan, by 2030, a total of 10000 NIO battery swapping stations will be built, and the annual electricity demand of the network is expected to exceed 10 billion kWh. The corresponding energy storage capacity will also be increased from the current 6 to 7 GWh to 20 GWh.

For CGN, these scattered battery swapping stations across the country are high-quality user side regulation resources, providing a platform for participating in the electricity market and vehicle grid interaction; For NIO, the combination of green electricity matching and carbon accounting services provides proof of zero carbon identity for charging and swapping networks.keywords:New energy information network

Both parties have previously established a foundation for cooperation in the electricity market, and this time, it is upgrading electricity trading to ecological synergy. After the integration of vehicles, stations, and networks, the boundary between transportation and energy is becoming increasingly blurred.Editor/Yang Meiling