The Audi Smart Energy Network is a pilot project by the German automobile manufacturer designed to test the combination of automobile, home, and power supply in order to form an intelligent energy network. The program is currently being tested in households located in the Ingolstadt area and the Zurich region of Switzerland. It will involve stationary storage batteries with solar installations and use control software by the Zurich start-up company Ampard distributes the solar power intelligently based on the current or plan-able demand from car, household and heating system. The unique factor in the project is the ability to provide “balancing power”- balancing out the fluctuations between power generation and consumption, and stabilizing the grid frequency by temporarily storing smaller amounts of energy in stationary units at short notice. This optimizes internal consumption.
Audi states that the devices involved will “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.”
“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,” said Dr. Hagen Seifert, head of sustainable product concepts at Audi. “That is now for the first time also possible down at the level of individual households, which helps balance the entire power grid.”