Engineering Students push the boundaries of Energy Efficiency at Shell’s Make The Future live event
лип. 19, 2019
Kyiv – In the beginning of July 2019 Shell held its Shell Eco-marathon Mileage Challenge and the Drivers’ World Championship – the ultimate energy competition among the engineering students teams in Europe.
Over 1,500 engineering students with 140 vehicles from 28 countries from Europe and beyond entered the competition, driving vehicles powered by energy sources that ranged from traditional diesel and gasoline fuel, to lower-carbon technologies such as battery electric and hydrogen fuel cells.
Taking place from July 1 to July 5 at the Mercedes Benz World track near London, the event showcased award-winning low carbon businesses from Shell’s Springboard and Livewire entrepreneur competitions. It also featured the Energy Summit, where Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden set out how he believes coalitions of businesses can take action today to help decarbonise the global economy.
After spending the last 12 months designing their energy-efficient vehicles, students competed in the Mileage challenge to travel as far as they could on the equivalent of one litre of fuel or 1kWh of electricity. They competed in two main categories – one for Prototype vehicles and the other for UrbanConcept cars. Within these categories, they competed on three different fuel energy technologies: internal combustion, battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell.
The UrbanConcept, featuring more conventional concept vehicles, saw an all-time record set in the battery-electric category. It was done by French team TIM UPS INSA from INSA de Toulouse University with a record distance of 234.3 km/kWh. The internal combustion award went to team DTU Roadrunners from the Technical University of Denmark with a fuel consumption of 429.4 km per litre. The Dutch Green Team Twente from the University of Twente won the hydrogen category with a distance of 242.5 km/m3.
The Prototype vehicles competition features futuristic design vehicles. The French team Microjoule-La Joliverie from Lycee Saint-Joseph La Joliverie managed the furthest overall distance during the competition reaching 2,735 km per litre with an internal combustion engine. The German ThaiRe-H2-Racing team from University of Applied Sciences Stralsund won the hydrogen category with a distance of 1,082.8 km/m3. The battery-electric category saw the Spanish Eco-Dimoni team from I.E.S Cotes Baixes High School winning with a distance of 888.8 km/kWh.
The culmination of the global programme of Shell Eco-marathon is the Drivers’ World Championship series. This is where the best UrbanConcept teams from the Americas, Asia and Europe race head-to-head for 7 laps with the goal to finish first without running out of energy. Green Team Twente from University of Twente in the Netherlands took top position on the podium by crossing the line first.
Inspired by success of the teams from around the globe and the opportunities which Shell Eco-marathon provides, a Ukrainian team from Lutsk National Technical University “LNTU Energy Save Team”, created just recently in the end of 2018, has set an ambition to represent Ukraine in this competition in the upcoming years. Ukrainians have just released their first real car “Buggi” which is yet to be tested. Their next step is to work on a vehicle, which is to be built and designed specifically for the competition.
Other teams from technical universities in Ukraine are mostly welcome to join the competition as well.
Peter Kerekgyarto, General Director of Shell Retail Ukraine, said: “By holding Shell Eco-marathon since 1985, we are delighted to bring to all young talents the opportunities to not only demonstrate their knowledge, skills and creativity, but also to contribute to the better lower-carbon future. This year’s participants have set new exciting records which may require special ingenuity from participants in the future competitions. Nevertheless, we believe that soon Ukrainian teams will also be among enthusiastic participants and will demonstrate decent results.”.
For more information about Shell Eco-marathon please visit the website or follow the Facebook and Twitter channels.
NOTE TO EDITORS
About Make the Future Live
Bringing together governments, businesses, entrepreneurs, students and local communities, Make the Future Live provides a platform for innovation, collaboration and conversation around global energy challenges.
About Shell Eco-marathon
Shell Eco-marathon is a world-leading energy-efficiency programme for students, aiming to inspire STEM careers that make the future. It requires high school and university teams to explore every aspect of design, technology and engineering to build their own ultra-energy-efficient cars, and then take them out on the track in competition.
The concept can be traced back to 1939 when Shell Oil Company employees in the USA made a friendly wager on who could travel the farthest using the same amount of fuel. This was the beginning of what is now known as the Shell Eco-marathon Mileage Challenge. The first official Shell Eco-marathon Mileage Challenge competition took place in 1985 in France; 25 wooden vehicles were on the grid that year! In the 34 years since, the competition has grown to host thousands of participants from over 50 countries across the world, in nine locations.
Today, Shell Eco-marathon programmes are held annually in Asia, Americas and Europe and consist of two key competition types: Shell Eco-marathon Mileage Challenge - students compete to see whose car design can go the farthest on the least amount of fuel; Shell Eco-marathon Drivers’ World Championship - the world's best UrbanConcept teams compete in an exciting global race to find the world's fastest energy-efficient driver.
In 2019, the Shell Eco-marathon Drivers’ World Championship takes place on July 5 in London, United Kingdom. Qualifying events took place in California, USA; and in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in April 2019.
For more information, please, contact press office of Shell Retail Ukraine:
Viktor Kachurenko
+38 044 495 08 00
Bohdana Sendziuk
+38 044 586 63 50
Chrystyna Kosonotska
+38 044 586 63 50