Solar plane's China visit to lift environmental awareness

Stops in China are important landmarks on the route of the Solar Impulse II, the first solar-powered plane to circumnavigate the world, said mission flight director Raymond Clerc.

This is because China is a big market for environmentally friendly technology, and the Solar Impulse II will raise awareness of this project in China, Clerc said on Saturday.

The plane took off on Monday in Abu Dhabi at 7:12 am local time. Its flight plan called for stops in various cities, including Muscat in Oman, Varanasi and Ahmedabad in India, Chongqing and Nanjing in China and Phoenix, Arizona in the United States.

Stopovers were also planned for Europe and North Africa.

The Solar Impulse II is expected to set a record for flying 40,000 km on solar power alone. To make the mission possible, 20 engineers and specialists have been monitoring the flight on video screens at the Mission Control Center, which was built for the project.

The takeoff took just seconds, and the workers at the MCC watched the live broadcast with pride and applauded as the plane took off.

One special guest was Albert II, prince of Monaco, who attended the event to show his support. He wore the MCC uniform and sat among the MCC engineers during the takeoff.

Prince Albert said that it was an honor to host the MCC in Monaco because it was "great to have Monaco's name associated with the project". Monaco strongly supports renewable energy, he said.

"Mission Control Center is the guardian angel of the Solar Impulse II because we receive all the necessary data to keep the plane in the air and keep the pilots happy and healthy," said Conor Lennon, MCC's communications manager.

Lennon said that MCC's control team will handle meteorological data monitoring, air traffic control, mission control and flight strategy control. All this information will be provided to the flight director, who will provide information to the pilot with all the instructions from takeoff to landing.

The history of the Solar Impulse II dates back to 1999, when Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss scientist and aeronaut, completed a nonstop around-the-world balloon flight.

Piccard promised himself that he would circumnavigate the world again, but this time without fuel or polluting emissions. That in turn led to the Solar Impulse project, which began in 2003.

In July 2010, Solar Impulse I made the first round-the-clock flight without fuel. This year, the Solar Impulse II will fly across the world in 12 stages, with expected arrival in China in April.

Many of the innovative Solar Impulse II technologies can be commercialized to address environmental problems, said Maxine Ghavi, group senior vice-president and program director for microgrids at ABB Ltd, the Swiss power and automation technologies company.

ABB is the engineering partner for the Solar Impulse project. Three ABB engineers have participated in the project, and they are supported by ABB's research and development centers and other colleagues.

The ABB team will take care of improving the ground operations control systems and optimizing the electronic chargers for the airplane's battery systems, among other tasks.

"The two organizations have a common vision. We both believe that it is important to decouple economic growth from environmental impact, by focusing on energy efficiency and renewable energy," Ghavi said.

She said that energy efficiency, energy storage and efficient conversion from renewable sources to electricity are important technologies that can be taken from the Solar Impulse project for commercialization.