Rabat – The Solar Impulse Project, the sun-powered aircraft, and the Moroccan solar program share a pioneer and innovative spirit in favor of slashing dependency on fossil energy and promoting renewable energy as a clean and economical alternative, the Project’s initiators said on Wednesday at the Rabat-Salé airport.
Bertrand Piccard, initiator and pilot of the aircraft, said that the project’s developers chose Morocco as a destination of this first continental flight to pay tribute to the pioneer spirit of the Kingdom which committed itself to reducing its dependency on fossil energy.
The Swiss aviator, who was speaking to media representatives after his landing, voiced admiration for the Moroccan solar program carried out by Morocco’s solar energy agency as well as for the largest solar plant in Ouarzazate.
Solar Impulse Project and the Moroccan solar program are the results of the same logic, he said, calling for adopting innovative approaches to defeat the impossible.
Solar Impulse HB-SIA is the first aircraft that can fly day and night without fuel or polluting emissions. It demonstrates the huge potential of new technologies in terms of energy reduction and the production of renewable energy.
This revolutionary carbon fiber aircraft, that has the wingspan of an Airbus A340 (63.4m) and the weight of an average family car (1,600kg), is the result of seven intense years of work, calculations, simulations and tests by a team of 70 people and 80 partners.
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