Audi To Fund Expansion Of Europe's Renewable Energy To Help Attain Carbon-Neutral Mobility

German luxury carmaker Audi recently conducted a special tech talk with media from across to globe to talk about its green initiatives. One of the major announcements from the event was that the company is partnering with energy providers to support the expansion of renewable energy sources in order to increase the number of charging stations in Europe that use green power. Audi's aim here is to work with these different partners to build new wind and solar farms in various European countries by 2025, which together are expected to generate around 5 terawatt-hours of additional green power. This will further the carmaker's vision to attain carbon-neutral mobility.

The first project to kick-start this initiative will be a solar park developed in collaboration with the German utility company RWE, which will come up in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Said to be one of the largest independent solar parks in Germany, the plant will have nearly 420,000 solar panels and will have a total capacity of 170 million kilowatt-hours. It will be ready in 2022. Audi says this is the next step to attain its vision of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Audi's immediate goal is reducing the carbon footprint of its fleet by 30 per cent over its life cycle by 2025.

Audi says that the entire life cycle of its models is divided into three stages: the manufacturing stage (starting with the extraction of raw materials through component manufacturing and automobile production), the utilization stage (vehicle operation including the supply of fuel or electricity), and recycling. And by partnering with European energy suppliers, Audi aims to decarbonise the utilisation stage. Its immediate goal is reducing the carbon footprint of its fleet by 30 per cent over its life cycle by 2025.

Also Read: Carbon Footprint Of An Electric Car vs Fossil Fuel Car

Simply put, even though electric cars do not have any tailpipe emission, it's not like they do not have a carbon footprint. From the production of an EV to the electricity used to charge the vehicle to finally disposal of battery, a lot of energy consumption takes place during all these processes. The generation of electricity also produces carbon emissions - far more when the power is generated from fossil fuels than from renewable energy sources. And to address this very issue Audi will soon be directly funding the generation of renewable electricity.