Video: E-mobility showcase at Indonesian ABB Formula E

Kiwi Jaguar TCS Racing driver Mitch Evans is hoping for a podium finish at the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship event in Jakarta on June 4 after a double win in Rome and a fifth in Berlin.

He will be among 22 drivers competing at the 2.37km circuit, with the round nine event including ABB’s e-mobility showcase that previously featured at the Berlin race, and the Allianz E-Village fan festival.

“Although it is a new market for the championship, ABB has been supporting Indonesia’s economic growth for more than three decades,” says ABB chief communications and sustainability officer Theodor Swedjemark.

Jakarta has experienced rapid urbanisation and with more than 10 million inhabitants it is the most populous city in Southeast Asia, giving rise to a multitude of development requirements.

Indonesian property development and management company PT Putragaya Wahana (PGW) is developing a large-scale, mixed-use complex called Thamrin Nine in the city’s heart, centred on Tower 1, which will become the tallest building in Indonesia and the Southern Hemisphere.

Building and maintaining the electric power network in high-rise buildings places great demand on ensuring uninterrupted power supply to crucial systems and equipment. So ABB is delivering power distribution solutions to ensure supply reliability, its UniGear switchgear providing the design flexibility and system protection necessary.

Another project where ABB is supporting development in Indonesia is the central government’s Gresik Drinking Water Project. With a capacity of 1000 litres per second, it aims to improve drinking water supply for community and industry in the Gresik Regency. ABB is supplying drives and programmable logic controllers to improve efficiency, giving estimated annual energy savings of 37% compared to traditional solutions.

The Jakarta E-Prix will also host the latest staging of FIA Girls on Track, of which ABB is a global partner. The event will offer girls aged eight to 18 the opportunity to explore multiple aspects of the motorsport industry through a set of activities and workshops. One of these will focus on ABB Robotics and feature the company’s two newest collaborative robots – YuMi and GoFa.

Further supporting this partnership, ABB’s latest video in its FIA Girls on Track series has been released ahead of the race, featuring award-winning Formula E photographer Lou Johnson. The video explores her experience in the series, the challenges she has faced and the positive diversity and inclusion changes evident within the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

A new episode of ABB Decoded – the podcast that focuses on the technology and trends that are shaping our world – will be available on Friday. Featuring Formula E founder and chairman Alejandro Agag, it explores how he came to create the world’s first all-electric international single-seater championship, what inspires him and what’s next.

Meanwhile, drivers will have no experience from past years to call on in Jakarta, and the engineers will have no real-track data to use as a starting point for car set-up.

A forecast for warm, humid weather conditions, along with the fresh road surface, adds to the pressure on teams to quickly adapt to conditions during limited practice sessions.

Those on-track runs will be closely monitored by the teams to determine energy demands and establish strategy for the race, says ABB.

Managing the energy usage from the battery packs to assure a competitive pace all the way to the end of the 45-minute plus one lap race is always a logistical challenge, just as it is for the electricity grids that ABB specialises in building and equipping. It’s an aspect of Formula E that becomes even more relevant with the rollout of the Gen3 racecars in Season 9, when ABB becomes the official charging supplier for the series.

North of the city centre near Java Bay in the Ancol Beach area, a popular recreation park, race track construction began in February this year, according to series’ governing body the FIA. The layout includes banked sections and a long, fast straight, assuring high-speed duels, as well as the tight corners that typify Formula E courses.

The Jakarta course differs from other temporary E-prix locations in its post-race life. Electricity and water infrastructure installation will remain in place, and plans call for the track to serve as a testing ground for the vehicle electrification needed to meet the government’s sustainability goals.

Following Jakarta, the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship heads to Marrakesh for round 10 on July 2.