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Enel: on a charge

Nico Rosberg, Formula 1 World Champion and Formula E investor, drives the Formula E track car.

By Bunmi Ade | The fourth season of the all-electric racing series FIA Formula E ended on the 15th of July 2018 in New York with a new championship leader, Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne, and a farewell to the first generation race cars. The first four seasons of Formula E required a mid-race car swap into a second car as their batteries could not last the whole race, however, Season 5 brings a new race car “Gen2” with more advanced battery technology so each team has only one car per driver.

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This race also marked another successful year in Enel’s partnership with the all-electric racing series. In April 2018, the global energy company reaffirmed its commitment to Formula E by becoming the official Smart Charging Partner and Official Power Partner for the next five seasons.

This means from Season 5, Enel will supply technology and services including 80kW Superchargers for the new higher capacity batteries. As reported last year in “Pushing the Green Envelope”, Enel deploys microgrids and sensors at Formula E races and has an app for live tracking energy usage at Formula E events. The app indicates that the average energy consumption per race in Season 4 was 9MWh compared to 7.9MWh last season i.e. green energy consumption is increasing as the series grows.

Moving from four wheels to two, Enel also recently announced that through its advanced energy services division Enel X, it will offer its technical expertise and experience in electric mobility to the FIM Enel MotoE World Cup. MotoE is a new single-make championship, which will use Energica’s high-performance electric race bike, Ego Corsa. Technical Specifications of the Ego Corsa superbike can be found here.

From Season 5, Enel will supply technology and services including 80kW Superchargers for the new higher capacity batteries.

Similarly to Formula E partnership, the Group will provide smart and fast charging advanced energy services (capable of fully charging a motorcycle in less than 30 minutes), green energy supply and storage, with dedicated on-site personnel and facilities through the latest generation of portable solar photovoltaic systems and/or energy available from local distribution grids. In addition to this role, Enel is also appointed as MotoGP’s Sustainable Power Partner and will work with commercial rights owner Dorna to provide MotoGP with energy solutions to enhance events’ energy efficiency.

It is expected that lessons learned from products and services deployed in Formula E will be shared with MotoE and to augment their technical partnerships, Enel hosts a series of global talks called #EnelFocusOn. EFO gathers the most talented visionaries related to cutting-edge technologies, challenging each others’ views and assumptions.

As Enel’s CEO and General Manager Francesco Starace states: “Sustainability must drive innovation. There is no alternative. In a utility, innovation without sustainability is worth nothing”.

Enel’s partnership with these exciting electric racing series certainly affirms its commitment to charge ahead with innovative, sustainable energy and mobility solutions in motorsport and the global energy market.


Bunmi Ade is a motorsport consultant with several years’ experience as a Business Development Manager and Brand Influencer for motorsport brands. She has worked with Driven International since 2015 and is responsible for new markets at the consultancy whose clients include British Automobile Racing Club. Bunmi founded the GridPasses website, hosts regular business roundtable discussions with motorsport industry experts and occasionally writes for various publications like Times Newspaper, Paddock magazine and eRacingMagazine.

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