Solar Team Twente has found professional guidance with captain Peter Korevaar, meteorologist at the Joint Meteorological Group of the Royal Dutch Air Force. Past year the strategic team of Antoni and Wouter has been working on a mathematical strategic model to determine the optimal race speed. Besides the energy output of The RED Engine the sun’s input is of great importance. This means the weather plays an important role during the World Solar Challenge. This has shown during the previous edition, when the turbulent weather arount Port Augusta gave a lot of teams headaches, resulting in only a few teams arriving in Adelaide on time.
“It is a great honour that Peter wants to be part of our team, with his meteorological knowledge and experience he can have an important role.”, according to Race Leader Jelle. Solar Team Twente has acces to detailed satellite immages of the Stuart Highway, the 3000 kilometer long highway from Darwin to Adelaide. “The interpretation of this data is important to take the right decisions during the race, and if during a race day the predictions aren’t matching with reality we want to quickly adapt our strategy. This means, for instance, that we will be temperorarily driving faster or slower to collect more sunlight with the solar panel. In discussion with Peter this can be done a lot quicker and more accurate” according to Antoni.
Peter Korevaar will join the team tonight. Coming Sunday he will take place next to Antoni in the DMU (Decision Making Unit), with a good view on both the strategic model and of course the weather. This is by no means a first meeting, however, as there has been a lot of close coöperation in the past year to create a fast and reliable weather system.
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