The Down load: Fighting blackouts with battery-swap networks, and AI surgical procedure monitoring

On the early morning of April 3, Taiwan was hit by a 7.4 magnitude earthquake. Seconds later, hundreds of battery-swap stations in Taiwan sensed one thing else: the electrical power frequency of the electric powered grid took a unexpected fall, a sign that some electrical power plants had been disconnected in the disaster. The grid was now battling to meet strength demand from customers.

These stations, designed by the Taiwanese firm Gogoro for electrical-run two-wheeled vehicles like scooters, mopeds, and bikes, reacted right away. According to figures furnished by the corporation, 590 Gogoro battery-swap destinations (some of which have much more than one swap station) stopped drawing electrical power from the grid, decreasing community need by a total 6 megawatts—enough to electrical power countless numbers of properties. It took 12 minutes for the grid to recuperate, and the battery-swap stations then resumed usual operation.

Gogoro is not the only firm working on battery-swapping for electric scooters—New York Town not too long ago launched a pilot method to give shipping motorists the selection to cost this way—but it is certainly 1 of the most profitable.

Now the corporation is placing the battery community to yet another use: Gogoro is working to integrate the stations into a virtual electricity plant (VPP) program that allows the Taiwanese grid remain far more resilient in emergencies like April’s earthquake. Go through the entire story.

—Zeyi Yang

What applying synthetic intelligence to enable observe operation can train us

Each individual yr, some 22,000 Americans a 12 months are killed as a result of critical healthcare mistakes in hospitals, many of them on functioning tables. There have been instances the place surgeons have remaining surgical sponges inside of patients’ bodies or carried out the wrong procedure entirely.