Innovative solar technology from SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR) helped Solar Impulse 2 blaze new trails for renewable energy. Landing safely in Abu Dhabi, the single-seater solar plane has just completed its groundbreaking flight around the world with zero fuel, demonstrating the durability and reliability of high-efficiency solar power solutions. The feat was a first for an aircraft of this kind.
“The level of performance, durability and reliability required by the solar solution to achieve this groundbreaking flight made SunPower’s unique cell technology a natural choice for the Solar Impulse team,” said Peter Cousins, SunPower senior vice president, research, development and deployment. “We’ve helped Solar Impulse break boundaries and set world records using the same cell architecture found in our world-record efficiency solar panels that provide clean energy to our diverse customers from around the world.”
Because SunPower solar cells are highly efficient, durable, lightweight, and about as thin as a human hair, they were first chosen to power Solar Impulse 1 which flew across the U.S. in 2013 and set eight world records—including becoming the first solar-powered plane ever to fly through the night, between two continents and across the United States.
Founded and run by Swiss visionaries Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, the Solar Impulse project has continually set out to demonstrate that alternative energy sources can achieve what many have considered to be impossible. Solar Impulse 2, the culmination of 12 years of research and experimentation, is an engineering triumph capable of flying non-stop, day and night, powered solely by solar energy and limited only by the pilot’s endurance.
Visit the SunPower blog post here for more on record-breaking achievements and highlights from Solar Impulse 2’s round-the-world flight, and what they could mean for the future of solar.
source-prnewswire
