Nio off-grid battery swap station: solar power and energy storage
Nio has opened an autonomous battery swap station in Xinjiang that runs on solar power and stored energy without a grid connection. The company calls it the world’s first zero-carbon off-grid swap site.
Nio opened its first battery swap station in Xinjiang on September 23 that is completely independent of the external power grid. During the day, the equipment draws energy directly from solar panels, with excess power sent to an energy storage system; at night, the station runs on the stored energy. Nio calls the Xingxingxia site the world’s first zero-carbon off-grid battery swap station powered by solar generation and storage — that is the company’s own claim.
The location was chosen for a reason. Xingxingxia lies in the Gobi Desert, where extending the power grid would require long transmission lines. Conditions are also harsh: winter temperatures fall to −30 °C, the ground surface can exceed +70 °C in summer, and winds of force 8 or above are recorded on more than 100 days a year. The LONGi system automatically switches between solar generation and storage, while prolonged cloud cover triggers energy reserves for critical systems.
This is fundamentally different from Nio’s earlier experiments with solar generation. In 2024, the company and LONGi launched a station integrated with solar panels, but the Xingxingxia site is the first to operate as a fully autonomous system with no grid connection. Other Chinese infrastructure is moving in a similar direction: CATL is combining ultra-fast charging and battery swapping in a single energy network.
The station has become part of Nio’s Silk Road route — a 3605-km corridor with 33 battery swap points. The company had already announced completion of construction at the site on September 11, while full connection of the route is scheduled for September 26.
The scale is already large enough to test this approach beyond a one-off experiment. As of September 23, Nio had 4109 swap stations in China, including 1060 along highways, as well as 5301 charging stations. If the autonomous design proves durable in desert conditions, it could be used on long-distance routes and in areas where building full grid infrastructure is too expensive.