The Mobility2Grid research campus is entering its second funding phase. In the period between 2022 and 2027, the network of a total of ten scientific and business partners will receive funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) totaling 10 million euros. The chairman of the research campus is Prof. Dr. Dietmar Göhlich, who heads the Methods of Product Development and Mechatronics department at the TU Berlin. A total of seven TU Berlin departments are involved in the Mobility2Grid research campus.
Rethinking mobility – Mobility2Grid research campus
The electrification of transport is a unique opportunity to explore energy and transport systems together and to exploit synergies. The Mobility2Grid research campus – located on the EUREF site in Berlin-Schöneberg – researches and implements innovative solutions to ensure the supply of electricity, heat and transport in the long term in an affordable, secure and fully renewable energy-based manner. To this end, electrification technologies for all relevant mobility sectors and their coupling with a decentralized energy grid are being designed. The EUREF campus in Berlin serves as a test and reference neighborhood.
The core idea of the Mobility2Grid research campus is the integration of commercial and private electric road vehicles into intelligent, decentralized energy grids.
In the first funding phase from 2015 to 2020, the research priorities have been distributed across the following seven thematic areas: “Acceptance and Participation,” “Smart Grid Infrastructures,” “Networked E Mobility,” “Bus and Commercial Transport,” “Education and Knowledge Transfer,” “Digital Spaces,” and, as a cross-cutting thematic area, “Operation and Utilization.”
Among the results is that a comprehensive traffic and mobility concept for the EUREF campus could be created and implemented. In addition, the operational capability of autonomous vehicles was tested on the EUREF campus, a digital booking tool for optimizing operational electric fleet solutions was developed, and selected partial concepts of the EUREF campus in Berlin-Schöneberg could be transferred to other locations (EUREF campus Düsseldorf, residential area “Berliner Platz” in Erfurt ).
The second funding phase of the research campus, which has now been approved, will make it possible to implement the blueprint developed in recent years for the expansion of urban areas in various implementation projects over the next few years. For this purpose, four Berlin sites were identified which, due to their prerequisites, are suitable for the transfer and expansion of core elements of the research and development work on the EUREF Campus. These are the site of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (MPIB), the Schindler Innovation Campus Berlin (SICB), the site of the Berlin.Industrial.Group. (B.I.G.) and the new housing construction project “Das Neue Gartenfeld” (DNG). Added to this is the newly emerging EUREF Campus Düsseldorf.
Partners in the Mobility2Grid research campus
A total of 36 partners from science and industry are involved. From the TU Berlin the following departments are involved: Department of Work Science/Technology and Participation, DAI Laboratory, Department of Logistics, Department of Methods of Product Development and Mechatronics, Department of Energy Supply Networks and Integration of Renewable Energies, Department of Road Planning and Road Operations, and the Department of Transportation System Planning and Traffic Telematics.
Campus EUREF
On the EUREF campus in Berlin-Schöneberg, more than 5,000 people work, research and learn in more than 150 companies, institutions and start-ups around the topics of energy, mobility and sustainability. Since the project began in 2008, the approximately 5.5-hectare urban quarter, which has already been meeting the German government’s 2045 climate targets since 2014, has developed into a real laboratory for the energy transition that is unique in Europe.