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Why Back Contact (BC) Technology Is Powering The Next Gen Solar Cars? Photograph: (LONGi & AI)
Chinese solar manufacturing behemoth LONGi recently partnered with Belgium’s Innoptus Solar Team and the Netherlands’ Delft Solar Team for the 2026 American Solar Challenge. The partnership was aimed at supplying its back-contact (BC) solar technology to their racing solar cars. The collaboration builds on LONGi’s partnership with Innoptus at the 2025 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge and reflects the company’s strategy of using solar motorsport as a testing ground for next-generation photovoltaic technologies.
LONGi is not the first solar manufacturer to use motorsport as a proving ground for advanced photovoltaic technology. For more than a decade, SunPower, whose Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) technology is now commercialised by Maxeon Solar Technologies, dominated elite solar racing. Its all-back-contact cells powered a majority of teams at the Formula Sun Grand Prix and the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, with manufacturers highlighting the technology’s ability to deliver higher energy output from the limited surface area available on solar race cars.
More recently, AIKO has emerged as another company using solar motorsport to demonstrate the capabilities of its All Back Contact (ABC) technology. At the 2025 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, the Brunel Solar Team and Solar Team Twente, both equipped with AIKO’s ABC cells, secured first and second positions respectively. In 2026, AIKO expanded these collaborations by extending its partnership with Norway’s Nordlys NTNU and signing Estonia’s Solaride team, positioning solar racing as a platform to validate the efficiency, durability and temperature performance of its BC technology under demanding real-world conditions.
LONGi’s latest collaboration with Belgium’s Innoptus Solar Team and the Netherlands’ Delft Solar Team follows the same strategy. After partnering with Innoptus during the 2025 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, the company has expanded its involvement to the 2026 American Solar Challenge, where its BC modules will be tested over an eight-day endurance race across the United States. The move reflects a broader industry trend in which leading solar manufacturers are using competitive solar racing not merely as a branding exercise but as a real-world laboratory to refine high-efficiency cell technologies before wider commercial deployment
Why are solar companies taking BC technology to solar race cars?
Unlike rooftop or utility-scale solar projects, solar race cars have only around 4-6 square metres of space for solar panels. Since the surface area is fixed, manufacturers use racing to demonstrate how higher-efficiency BC cells can generate more electricity from the same footprint, giving teams a competitive edge during endurance events.
Back Contact (BC) cells place all electrical contacts on the rear of the cell, eliminating front-side busbars and fingers that partially shade conventional solar cells. This design allows more sunlight to reach the active surface, improving energy yield—an important advantage when every watt counts.
Solar endurance races such as the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge and the American Solar Challenge expose vehicles to high temperatures, changing weather, road vibrations and long-distance driving. These conditions allow manufacturers to evaluate the efficiency, durability and reliability of BC technology beyond controlled laboratory environments.
Unlike standard rooftop modules, solar race cars require lightweight, highly efficient and often flexible solar modules that can conform to aerodynamic vehicle designs. Collaborations with racing teams enable companies to develop and demonstrate advanced vehicle-integrated photovoltaic (VIPV) solutions.
Manufacturers such as Maxeon (formerly SunPower), AIKO and LONGi have partnered with leading university solar racing teams to showcase successive generations of back-contact technologies. These competitions provide a global platform to demonstrate improvements in efficiency, reliability and system integration before wider commercial deployment.
Strong performance in internationally recognised solar races offers independent validation of a company’s technology. Winning or powering top-performing teams helps strengthen a manufacturer’s reputation among customers, investors and industry stakeholders, particularly in the premium high-efficiency solar segment.
As solar manufacturers increasingly compete on efficiency and technology rather than production capacity alone, motorsport has emerged as a proving ground for BC innovations. Demonstrating superior performance in demanding applications supports companies’ efforts to position BC technology as the next generation of high-performance photovoltaic solutions.
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