Smart Wheels

Smart Wheels develops and tests business models and ICT-solutions for the diffusion of e-mobility by the integration into the “Internet of Energy” and the infrastructure of municipal utilities.The program „ICT for electric mobility“ offers great chances. Not only regarding the required CO-2 reduction, but also in reference to a secured energy supply and the load management of power grids.The integration of e-mobility with the energy system allows the use of vehicle batteries as a big distributed storage to balance the generation- and load-fluctuation. Batteries can charge power when renewable energies are present in the grid and feed it back into the grid in times of high demand. Furthermore, electric vehicles help the energy industry to optimize the load management of their grids. The Smart Wheels project researched and developed business models and convergent ICT services to integrate electric vehicles into smart grids and public utility infrastructures. One of the project's main priorities was to develop a concept that encompasses various vehicle types (electric buses, cars and scooters) to take optimal account of the issue of limited vehicle range. Within this concept, electric scooters were to be used to cover individual transport needs in city traffic (short distances) and electric cars primarily in city traffic and for regional travel (short and intermediate distances). As a third element in the equation, electric buses should cover the area of public transport, which has its own specific characteristics (maximum need for planning).38The field test with electric vehicles was carried out in the e-energy model region of Aachen (the Smart Watts project).