The government of Maharashtra has announced a strategic energy partnership with Taiwan's Gogoro Inc and Belrise Industries (erstwhile Badve Engineering Ltd) to set up battery swapping infrastructure in the state. The non-binding MoU agreement was signed at the Maharashtra pavilion at the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

Gogoro, a global technology leader in battery swapping ecosystems that enable smart sustainable mobility solutions for cities, and Belrise, a leading automotive systems manufacturer based in India, plan a joint 50-50 partnership to invest approximately US$2.5 billion (Rs 20,617 crore) over eight years with the Maharashtra government to build energy infrastructure across the state.

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 Eknath Shinde.

“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,” said Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra. “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.”

“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 utilising 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,” said Horace Luke, founder, and CEO of Gogoro. “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.”

Leveraging Gogoro's smart energy ecosystem
The battery swapping infrastructure is expected 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, and 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. As a manufacturing leader in India's transportation industry, we are embracing this for our own business, customers, and communities," said Shrikant Badve, Managing Director, Belrise Industries.  

Badve added, "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."

With more than 120 million residents, Maharashtra is India’s largest economy and industrialised state with a gross domestic product of more than US$450 billion that accounts for 16 percent of India’s industrial output.