Australia, Projects, Renewables, Solar

World Solar Challenge: Clean, green PV racing machines

PV Lab Australia is offering its photovoltaic expertise to a group of university students set to race across the desert in the 2023 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, writes company co-founders Lawrence McIntosh and Dr Michelle McCann.

It started with an innocuous email and ended with a space-age car lit up like a Christmas tree. The ANU Solar Racing team reached out to PV Lab Australia hoping for support in its quest to design and build a solar-powered race car. Little did they know they were about to receive much more than just financial assistance.

PV Lab Australia is proud to sponsor the ANU Solar Racing team, providing financial and technical support to help achieve its goals. The team’s vision is to compete in the 2023 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, a gruelling 3000km race from Darwin to Adelaide, from 22-29 October, that is open only to solar-powered vehicles.

The team’s participation in the event is not just about winning it, but also promoting clean energy and sustainable transportation. The technical challenges are enormous, from designing and building a durable and lightweight car to optimising its solar array to capture maximum energy from the sun.

Despite the challenges, the Australian National University students are committed and working tirelessly to make it a reality.

The ANU Solar Racing team’s car features high-efficiency solar cells. It weighs around 150kg with a top speed of approximately 100km/h. The driver sits in a snug cockpit surrounded by the solar array that powers the car. With the inside temperature reaching up to 50 degrees Celsius – with limited cooling and seat cushioning – drivers have been going through a vigorous training regime in preparation for race conditions.

As Australia’s leading provider of photovoltaic testing and quality assurance services, PV Lab Australia is uniquely positioned to help the ANU Solar Racing team maximise the performance of its solar array.

We have worked closely with the team to verify every cell is functioning correctly, using electroluminescence (EL) imaging to detect any defects or damage. This ensures the team can rely on the full output of its solar array during the race, without any unexpected losses in power.

Recently, a group of students from the ANU Solar Racing team visited our lab in the ACT to conduct the largest EL image we have ever taken.

“After navigating the streets of Canberra with our fragile top-shell tightly packed into the back of our trailer, secured by swags and blankets, our first challenge was to simply bring the array into the lab,” says ANU Solar Racing team member Scarlett Jamieson.

“It’s not easy moving a 20kg, four-square-metre, slightly curved solar panel. Although the purpose of this trip was to do an electroluminescence test of our array, lots of thought had to go into a mounting strategy. Several ratchet straps later, we got to the exciting part: connecting our high-voltage array to PV Lab’s power supply. We blocked out light from entering the room, set up the EL camera and were ready to go.”

However, after much anticipation, the team was disappointed to see just darkness on the camera screen so troubleshooting began.

“We spent hours resoldering our wiring before we realised the bypass diodes were bypassing backwards,” says ANU Solar Racing team member Aisha Wood-Amin.

“Remotivated, we hooked up our rewired array to the power supply and the camera screen lit up with a glowing solar array. We could see in detail any defects in the cells such as shunts or minor cracks, which will help us target our maintenance of the array as we prepare it for the race.

“Seeing the car light up on the camera screen was incredibly rewarding and essential to the progress of our array design and operation. We now have a better understanding of photovoltaics and testing processes, and are very excited to see the car drive very soon,”

PV Lab Australia’s sponsorship of the ANU Solar Racing team is not just about supporting a group of ambitious students but promoting the use of clean energy and sustainable transportation.

Next time the team visits our lab, we suggest they bring that old DeLorean they’ve been working on and we’ll help them hook up the flux capacitors. But in the meantime, we wish the students every success as they charge to cross the finish line in Adelaide in October 2023.

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