Dutch team Nuon has taken top honours in the 2018 Sasol Solar Challenge, arriving in Stellenbosch on the weekend with 4 030.4 km on the clock.

Nuon’s close rivals from Japan, team Tokai, completed 3 941.4 km, and had to be satisfied with second place.

The top South African team was the Tshwane University of Technology, which managed to travel 2 397 km, narrowly beating second placed local competitor, the North West University, with its 2 276.3 km on the clock.

The 2018 Sasol Solar Challenge took place from September 22 to September 29, and marked South Africa’s sixth solar car race.

The eight-day event saw more than 20 teams depart from Pretoria for the finish line in Stellenbosch.

The solar challenge is a distance race, with teams to drive as many kilometres as possible using only the energy provided by the sun.

Dutch team Nuon won the Sasol Solar Challenge in 2016 with a record-breaking 4 716 km.

The regulations for this year’s event changed, however, making it tougher for teams to achieve the same distances they did in 2016.

Cars were this year only allowed to have solar arrays of 4 m², where previously these arrays could be 6 m² in size.

This placed significant pressure on the engineers to deliver power from a smaller array. In order to achieve this, teams had to reduce the weight of their cars, as well as improve the energy technology on their vehicles.

“The Sasol Solar Challenge inspires students to develop new technologies [within] a competitive environment,” notes Sasol Solar Challenge director and founder Winstone Jordaan.

“They contribute to core research on solar technology, including the manufacturing of solar cells, their casings, converters, controllers and electronics. The research done by solar teams has become invaluable to the energy industry.”

Jordaan adds that the Sasol Solar Challenge is a way of bringing solar technology into communities throughout South Africa, making it more accessible, while also serving as a practical demonstration of its capability.

Sasol has sponsored the solar challenge since 2012 as part of its commitment to furthering science, technology, engineering and maths education and inspiring learners to pursue technical careers.