The new website of the World Solar Challenge is online and shows some of the new rules for the 2011 event.
The most interesting one is the new maximum solar panel area, which is 6m2 for silicon cells and 3m2 for GaAs cells.
This will mean that solar cars with good silicon solar panels will probably be able to generate more energy (!) than those with the most advanced and expensive GaAs cells (under equal circumstances, without concentrators). Can those driving on GaAs fully compensate for it by making the car smaller, and thus more lightweight and aerodynamic?
Another new rule: The front of the car must have an area comprising 30 cm x 150 cm as viewed from a height of 2 m at distance of 5 m for the purpose of sponsorship and event signage.
This may have consequences for the aerodynamics and/or limits the available surface for solar panels.
The complete 2011 rules will follow soon on the WSC website.
Just post your opinions about these new rules in the comments below...
Saturday, June 5, 2010
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The regulation for the area on the car will not have a detrimental effect on solar cell area availability. Only 6m2 is allowed while the car can be 5x1.8 (9m2). So the car might be a little longer only, and some cars already have a certain cell free area in their front section (ref: Tokai)
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it is an important drawback of the new regulations that the restrictions are irreversible, in the sense that once you have designed and built the car and driven the WSC2011, the restrictions cannot be lifted easily (you cannot just replace the solar panel for a more powerful one, or cover the 0.3x1.5m sponsor area with additional cells). The consequence is that the cars are very slow when solar-driving in other races and/or activities in not-so-sunny countries, and that people may then find the cars too "powerless" for commonday driving.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather see reversible restrictions, like: carrying 100kg dead weight and/or an obligatory passenger, driving on ordinary utility car wheels and/or holding the race in August (or early September) when it is winter in Australia. These measurements also adequately limit the average speeds. And after the race is over, you can simply remove the extra weight, swap tyres with low-resistance solar-tyres (and maybe wait for summer), to get a very efficient car for demonstrations/other challenges.
And regarding the 3m2 limitations of GaAs cells: I think that this is not fair, because in my opinion raising funds are also part of the challenge, and some teams are clearly more active in PR and sponsor activities than others (notice the differences in the number of quality video compilations among the teams).
Regarding the new rule "The design and construction of the vehicle must be such that, in the event of a front end collision, any part of the vehicle structure (especially the solar array) will be deflected away from the driver/passenger compartment.": This does not limit the occurrence of crashes. I'd rather see stronger tyres and tough suspension "torture" tests (driving over obstacles&spins). We still have to await the full 2011 regulations, but given the limited GaAs solar array size, there isn't much room for making the use of common utility scooter/car tyres obligatory because this would slow down the cars too much.
"I think that this is not fair, because in my opinion raising funds are also part of the challenge"
ReplyDeleteThat is really easy for you to say, as a Dutch team member. Dutch economy is excellent. What about Turkish, Egyptian, Indian, Indonesian, Malaysian, Brazilian, Venezuelan solar team? Should they just not be lazy and make a little more effort to get a million dollar, like your team or what?
Fund raising will always remains part of the deal, but competing and challenging for good positions has just become a bit easier.
Oh yeah, there you have a good point :) With these new rules, the WSC will be indeed much more competitive. But it is now very difficult to use GaAs cells: the approved 30% eff. GaAs panels are probably not good enough to beat the double-sized 20% eff. silicon panels, except if concentrators are used.
ReplyDeleteTo go for experimental Earth-optimized GaAs cells, with efficiency of 34% and up, is risky (Nuon tried it in 2009, but these didn't work out well).
So I'd rather reduce the max. GaAs area to 4 m^2 (instead of 3 m^2).
My prediction for the 2011 race (with the proposed rules: any solar car that uses GaAs cells in 2011, will be equipped with concentrators!