After the long winter break, the championship for ‘full electric’ race cars is back, this time in Argentina. The stage for the third race of the 2016-17 Formula E season will be the urban circuit of Puerto Madero, in Buenos Aires.
The ten teams of the championship will be competing on a track designed by the architect Santiago Garcia Remohí in one of the most modern neighbourhoods of the city. A fast track with technical sections, it covers 2,480 metres and has a long straight and 12 turns, including two chicanes.
This is the third time that Puerto Madero hosts an ePrix: from the very first season, Formula E has always raced on this circuit. This is an important detail because it allows the teams to compare data and statistics on the performance of the cars compared to previous seasons.
And when it comes to numbers, the champion Sebastien Buemi (Renault e.dams) is arriving in Buenos Aires as the leader of the current championship ranking and he is poised to set a new record if he manages to win the third race in a row after Hong Kong and Marrakesh.
For Enel, instead, the Argentine circuit marks its debut as Official Power Partner of the world championship for electric car prototypes. At the Buenos Aires race, our Group is already on the track with the eVillage, the small smart city set up on the occasion of every ePrix. It features innovative distribution and electricity generation systems that will power the event, mixing renewable and conventional energy sources.
In Buenos Aires, Enel’s team is working to install a micro-smart grid, an integrated system of innovative technologies that will raise the bar of the competition’s sustainability.
In Argentina, our microgrid will make another step forward in development compared to the systems deployed in Hong Kong and Marrakesh. A total of 40 smart ‘plug and play’ meters (i.e., fast and easy to assemble and disassemble) will be installed, as opposed to the 11 set up in Morocco. These will be managed by Enel EMS (Energy Management System) that represents the real backbone of the microgrid. Thanks to this system, an application installed on their devices (tablets, smartphones and notebooks) allows the teams to check in real time energy levels, recharging and consumption of the cars and of the facilities at the eVillage, as well as the green power produced by the 5kWp photovoltaic system, integrated with a system of batteries (storage) with a capacity of 12kWh and a power of 5kW.
Covering a surface of 40 square metres, the system is able to provide a stable supply of green power to a part of the eVillage including the Sports Arena, a virtual space where visitors can play and experiment with the speed of the electric race cars and that requires a careful management of the peak loads.
Enel’s objective is to replicate the Buenos Aires model on a broader scale, increasing the share of renewable energy at the disposal of the event at the next ePrix, making the microgrid increasingly stable, secure and sustainable.