In this day and age, car companies are introducing new features and technologies everyday—but true innovation is still worthy of recognition. Recently, the BMW i ChargeForward second-life energy storage system battery project with Geli won a 2015 Energy Storage North America (ESNA) Innovation Award. BMW of Freehold has the details.
The 240 kWh energy storage system is built from old MINI E battery packs and combined with solar power, which is used in the demand response tests. These batteries get a “second life” by repurposing them into a stationary solar-powered electric storage system located at the BMW Technology Office in Mountain View, California.
A fleet of 100 BMW i3 drivers is participating in a delayed charging program to determine the effects of this technology. This pilot study tests the reduction of demand on the power grid during peak periods. In this experiment, drivers allow BMW to delay the charging of their vehicles by up to one hour per day, based on requests received from PG&E when grid loads are at their peak, while always prioritizing customer charging preferences.
BMW is working with a number of other companies to make this electric vehicle charging experiment as successful as possible. The Geli Energy Operating System (Geli EOS™) allows the BMW microgrid to act as the backup capacity resource for the BMW i ChargeForward program, while Princeton Power Systems is helping to ensure that the electricity collected from the solar park in the MINI E second life batteries can be fed into both the BMW Group Technology Office building and the PG&E grid. EV Grid also provided the integration of the MINI E for the 2nd-life storage unit.
“The goal of the BMW i ChargeForward project is to show how electric vehicles with smart charging capability and stationary second life applications of EV batteries can provide valuable flexibility that would make it possible for utilities to maximize the effectiveness of the existing electricity grid, which we expect to ultimately lower total cost of EV ownership for consumers,” said Dr. Simon Ellgas, Senior Advanced Technology Engineer of Sustainable Mobility, BMW Group Technology Office USA.
Innovation is important to us at BMW of Freehold. Contact us or stop by the dealership today for more information on this or other projects.
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