Bronkhorst

Solar Team Twente: We believe in the power of the sun

19-03-2019

Bridgestone World Solar Challenge

By: Arthur Kambartsumjan (Solar Team Twente)

The Danish solar pioneer and adventurist Hans Tholstrup is the founder of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. Together with Larry Perkins he crossed Australia in 1982 from west to east with a self-made solar car called ‘The Quiet Achiever’. This was the inspiration to encourage others to find the limits of solar-powered transportation. And so since 1987 the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge takes place every other year. Nowadays the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is the greatest solar challenge, with more than 40 participants from all around the globe. There are for example several teams from Europe, America, Indonesia, Japan and Arabia.

The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge promotes sustainable transportation. Participating teams are challenged to design a car that drives 3000 kilometers, from North to South Australia, in a maximum of 6 days purely on solar energy. The race is all about being the first to cross the finish line, but having the fastest solar car is not a guarantee for victory. Having a strategy that takes weather, energy income and output, road conditions and traffic into account is of vital importance. By changing the regulations almost every edition, technological innovations are stimulated in the participating teams.
 

Solar car
RED One solar car (source: Solar Team Twente)
Solar Team Twente
Solar Team Twente

Solar Team Twente

Solar Team Twente participated the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge for the first time in 2005. Since then, every two years new team members develop a total new solar car to join the race. This year the solar team consists of 20 students from Saxion and the University of Twente. In addition to the students, Solar Team Twente has a strong network of innovative partners, like Bronkhorst. Together we develop a solar car as fast and efficient as possible.

Partners

This project would be impossible without our great network of partners. We have a network of more than 150 partners that are actively involved with our project. Every individual partner contributes to our project by technical, communicative or financial support. Since 2011, Bronkhorst is one of our partners. We are proud with this relationship since Bronkhorst is very active during our project.
 

UN Global Goals

At the beginning of December 2015, the climate summit took place in Paris. At this summit, goals were formulated to work on a sustainable future. One of these goals, for example, is reducing CO2 emission. All over the world people are trying to contribute to this goal, everyone in their own way; our contribution is developing and building a solar-powered car. This is why we became a member of the UN Global Compact.
 

European Championship

Besides the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, we also participate in the iLumen European Solar Challenge (iESC), the Europeans Championship for solar cars. The biggest event during the iESC is the 24-hour race. Last year we joined this race with two of our solar cars: RED Shift and RED One. Although we joined the race as a team activity, we became first and second with our cars.

 

Website Solar Team Twente