Going back decades, the field of solar racing has served as the proving ground where module manufacturers test technologies in conditions that are simply too rough for the lab. Late last month, Belgium's Innoptus Solar Team took their Infinite Apollo race car on a 200-kilometre tour of urban roads, with the back contact cells from Longi Green Energy Technology put to work in live traffic, shifting irradiance and the kind of everyday operating conditions a test rig cannot easily replicate.
Megawatt charging kicks into gear for Europe's e-trucks
The route covered six locations across Belgium and was the last major outing before the American Solar Challenge in July, where the same vehicle and module package will compete. Innoptus has spent ten months developing the car, which has clocked several thousand kilometres on the upgraded module and battery configuration in advance of the road test. Longi confirmed in March that it would equip the Apollo with its back contact technology and vehicle-integrated photovoltaic solutions for the American campaign.
Longi has spent the past five years pushing back contact architecture as its lead candidate for the next generation of high-efficiency cells, breaking the photovoltaic cell conversion efficiency record 23 times since 2021 according to the company. This includes a 28.13 percent figure for HIBC cells, certified by ISFH in Germany earlier this year, and a 26.4 percent module efficiency record using the same technology, certified by NLR in the United States. A separate 34.85 percent result was achieved last year for crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem cells, certified by NREL.
Fraunhofer-led project scales up charging for heavy-duty transport
The Belgian project also features the Antwerp-based industrial minerals group Sibelco, which supplies the high-purity quartz sand that goes into the cells used in the Apollo. The arrangement gives Longi a fully traceable material chain for the racing programme – from feedstock through to the vehicle-integrated modules that wrap the bodywork. Over the full 200 kilometres, the car kept a steady energy output as light conditions changed from site to site, the team reported.
The harder test will come in the factory rather than on the road, as TOPCon and HJT lines scale up in the next two to three years and the efficiency gap narrows. Until then, the Apollo and its American successor stand as a visible, rolling demonstration of what back contact cells can deliver in real-world conditions. (TF)
