Deakin and Acciona Energia to unveil first Victorian contender in World Solar Challenge

The 3000-kilometre race stretches from Darwin to Adelaide and involves teams of tertiary and secondary students from more than 30 countries. The students and their support teams were challenged to build a vehicle with their own hands and drive it across one of the world's most challenging environments – outback Australia – using technological innovation powered only by the energy of the sun.

Designed and built by students at Deakin the vehicle, codenamed ASCEND, is being unveiled during Geelong's Design Week and will be competing in the Cruiser division. The race is split in to three stages over three days and the Cruiser division is judged on criteria including payload, energy consumption and a subjective element of 'practicality'.

The cars are regulated requiring them to be roadworthy for use in Australia as per regulations of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge

"The vision for the car is to be in the vein of a classic grand tourer vehicle with a modern twist," said Deakin Associate Professor in Design and Product Development Paul Collins. "Our aim was to design a car that handles and performs like a GT. It should be as comfortable in the outback as much as on a city block."

With that philosophy in mind, interchangeable wheels and different electronic controls have been added to meet the different conditions. The project kicked off in 2019 and has involved nearly 1000 Deakin students across multiple schools including engineering, IT, communication and creative arts and business and law.

Principle sponsor of the ASCEND vehicle ACCIONA Energia has partnered with Deakin to demonstrate to Australians how far renewable energy has come.

With the addition of ACCIONA Energia's personnel and resources, the end result is a powerful and durable solar vehicle.

"We know that renewable energy is able to supply our cities and our businesses with plentiful power and the ASCEND vehicle encapsulates what clean energy is capable of," said ACCIONA Energia GM of Brand and Marketing Emma Reiners.

The project has not been without challenges – two-thirds of the build has taken place during Victoria's lockdown periods.

Deakin Associate Professor Paul Collins said the students are to be commended for their enduring commitment and resilience.

"The disruption over the last two years has caused the students to think creatively and use innovative technologies, distributed design and engineering to solve the challenge of building a complex and multi-disciplinary vehicle," said Associate Professor Collins. "Students even built home workshops and makeshift labs to be able to experiment, to design and validate and collaborate with their peers over video calls.

We are all very much looking forward to the next 18-months being free of restrictions in the lead up to the race."

ACCIONA Energia and Deakin’s partnership came about as part of the Victorian Government's Victorian Renewable Energy Target Auction (VRET2) as part of the bid to build the Mortlake South wind farm in western Victoria.

Launch Event details

We invite you to join us on the 16th of March for the unveiling of the ASCEND vehicle.

• Location: The Federal Mill Conference Centre, 33 Mackey Street, North Geelong, 3215.

During the event, you will hear from the students who have worked on this project and representatives from ACCIONA Energia and Deakin University about the successes and challenges involved in designing and developing this car.

Event Program:

9:45AM Arrival and registration

10:15AM Opening Ceremony

10:25AM Keynote Speaker - David Halliwell, Deakin University

10:40AM Keynote Speaker - Emma Reiners, ACCIONA Energia

10:55AM The Car Unveiling

11:00AM Student speaker

11:10AM Lunch and networking

1:00PM Event close – Media can access speakers for individual interviews/photographs/filming as well as Deakin students who are part of the project