Solar challenge coming to end
2010-10-02 09:51
Pretoria - Saturday will be the end of a 10-day solar and electric car event which saw groups competing in a bid to break records, demonstrating the potential of renewable energy sources for motoring.
The records broken at this year's SA Solar Challenge demonstrate the potential of alternate energy development in the country, said its spokesperson Jonathon Rees.
Rees said Japanese world champion solar car the Tokai Challenger, will finish in Pretoria on Saturday after breaking a record during a "gruelling but successful" 10 days travelling 4 000km around South Africa.
This is the longest overall distance travelled by a solar car in a South African event.
"It was cruising through the Karoo on Day 2 and Day 3 at 120km/h on the power of the sun alone," said Rees, adding that a South African solar car team has broken the day distance record several times. Although that was the case, Rees said the total event distance record by South Africa was likely to fall on Saturday.
Astonished looks
The competition requires that teams build their own cars, design their own engineering systems and power their vehicles through the most demanding terrain that solar cars have ever experienced.
The cars drew astonished looks from a public fascinated by the potential of solar and other renewable energies as they made their way from Pretoria to Cape Town, up the Garden Route to KwaZulu-Natal, and through Mpumalanga.
A member of a team from the University of Johannesburg, Marco Furrutter, described the event as "a way to solve a real world problem in a live environment and not in laboratory or on a computer".
His team's entry combines hydrogen fuel cells with an electric motor and a Yamaha R6 motorbike engine.
The fuel cells and electric motor add enough power to keep the revolutions down on the motorbike engine, which then reduces emissions.
The event is organised by the Advanced Energy Foundation and the Innovation Hub and receives backing from the department of science and technology and Motorsport SA among others, with the aim of promoting science and technology in southern Africa.
It also aims to demonstrate the potential of renewable energy sources for motoring and other industries.
- SAPA