EUREF Forschungscampus Mobility2Grid – Coupling smart grid technology and electric mobility for sustainable development in energy supply and mobility

Germany’s political decision of a 'transformation of the energy system' (known as the 'Energiewende') calls for a fundamental restructuring of the energy supply system over the next decades. Apart from employing renewable energy sources to an unforeseen extent, a decentralized and smart energy network system (“smart grid”) will become crucial. Smart grids are IT-based communication networks connecting energy production, storage media (e.g. batteries) and consumption. With some renewable energy sources being only available non-permanently (e.g. solar and wind power), a smart grid can ideally bridge intermittent gaps between energy supply and demand, while consumers’ behaviour, peaks and trough loading phases, the advancement of distributing and storage media and better energy efficiency (products, housing etc.) are under continuous scientific construction. A new trend is to attach crucial importance to integrating electric vehicles as storage devices into smart grids.

The project Mobility2Grid, funded under the BMBF’s initiative Research Campus, will therefore test, if and how electric vehicles used on a daily basis can become a key component for a smart grid energy network. Located at the European Energy Forum (EUREF) in Berlin Schöneberg, Mobility2Grid aims to combine technical R&D with research on social acceptance and consumers’ behaviour, as well as to translate new findings into interdisciplinary university courses (especially combined vocational training und degree programs), into professional training formats, and to develop suitable business models. Not least, results will be evaluated in terms of their actual carbon savings bearing the potential for national and European-wide applications.

Our research group ‘Science Policy Studies’ will develop and implement a comprehensive quality assurance and evaluation concept taking not only into account the complex need for coordinating a new actors’ alliance, but also the diverse if not conflicting reference systems of science and business. Bearing in mind that the idea of a Research Campus should go beyond the logics of a ‘usual’ collaborative research project, our work will also gather rich empirical data pertaining to questions of new and emerging technological fields, organizational development and knowledge & technology transfer.