The Gentleman Magazine Issue 7 | February 2018 | Page 26
Audi Smart Energy Network Pilot Project:
Eco-Electricity Intelligently Managed
Automobile, home and power supply combined to form an
intelligent energy network: In a pilot project the Audi Smart
Energy Network for the first time interacts with the power
grid. This marks a major advance for grid stability.
As part of a research project, Audi is running a pilot project
with households in the Ingolstadt area and the Zurich region
in conjunction with other partners. This involves combining
various sizes of photovoltaic systems with stationary storage
batteries. The control software by the Zurich start-up company
Ampard distributes the solar power intelligently based on the
current or plannable demand from car, household and heating
system. A unique feature of the pilot project is that it also
interacts with the power grid: Over a built-in communication
interface, all systems are interconnected to form a virtual
power plant, and constitute a smart grid.
“We are looking at electric mobility in the context of an overall
energy supply system that is increasingly based on renewables.
We are playing a pioneering role with the prequalification of the
balancing-power market – enabling producers to feed power
into the grid, as part of the pilot project. That is now for the first
time also possible down at the level of individual households,
which helps balance the entire power grid,” remarked Dr.
Hagen Seifert, Head of Sustainable Product Concepts at Audi.
As part of its quest for emission-free premium mobility, Audi
is also looking at services that extend beyond the automobile
as a product. One important aspect is the interrelationship
between all those areas of life where the car meshes seamlessly
with a connected environment. There is particular focus on
services that involve interaction between car and environment.
The connected home storage devices can provide what is
known as balancing power. In other words, they balance out
the fluctuations between power generation and consumption,
and stabilize the grid frequency by temporarily storing smaller
amounts of energy in stationary units at short notice. This
optimizes internal consumption: Operators of photovoltaic
systems increase their proportion of own-use solar power
while cutting their power procurement costs.
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