Solar Impulse grounded following 'irreversible' battery damage

Share

The Solar Impulse 2 (Si2) plane has been grounded in Hawaii after successfully completing the eighth, and most grueling, leg of its around the world journey. Damage to certain parts of the four 70 liter lithium polymer batteries, attached to the plane’s wings, is said to be irreversible, with repairs and replacements expected to take several weeks.

The batteries were developed with Solvay, Kokam and Bayer Material Science, and have been optimized to 260 watt hours per kg. Combined, they can store 164,580 watts of power, and weigh 633 kg – one-quarter of the aircraft’s total weight.

Due to the damage, the team will not be able to embark on the ninth (from 13) leg of its mission – to achieve the first round-the-world solar flight (35,000 km, 18,000 km of which has been covered) – until at least the beginning of August.

"During the first ascend on day one of the flight from Nagoya to Hawaii, the battery temperature increased too much due to over insulation," said the Solar Impulse team in a statement released.

"And while the Mission Team was monitoring this very closely during the mission leg, there was no way to decrease the temperature for the remaining duration of the flight as each daily cycle requires an ascend to 28’000 feet and descend for energy management issues," it continued.

Si2 began it record-breaking attempt this March 9 in Abu Dhabi. The next leg will see it flying around 4,707 km, from Hawaii to Phoenix. The plane, which is also equipped with 17,248 of SunPower’s monocrystalline solar cells, has an average speed of just 70 km/h.

Popular content

This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.

Share

Related content

Elsewhere on pv magazine...

Leave a Reply

Please be mindful of our community standards.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.

Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.

You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.

Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.