UAE green city firm hails Solar Impulse 2 resumes round-the-globe flight

Chief of a leading renewable energy firm in Abu Dhabi welcomed Friday the Solar Impulse 2 (Si2)'s attempt to fly a solar-motored and zero-jet fuel plane around the globe after months of interruption.

The jet took off from Hawaii, the United States, on Thursday, resuming a journey that was stalled for almost 10 months.

Masdar, Abu Dhabi's green city and renewable energy firm, whose chief executive officer, Mohamed Jameel Al-Ramahi welcome the experimental flight, is a key supporter of Si2.

It was instrumental in enabling the plane to lift off from Abu Dhabi's Bateen executive airport on in March last year, starting point of the global tour.

The flight was interrupted in June last year in an unscheduled stop in Japan after bad weather partially damaged the plane, whose wings carry 17,000 solar cells. At first Si2 aimed to fly 8,200 km from Nanjing, China, to Hawai within five days but weather forced it to land in Nagoya, Japan.

Al-Ramahi said that "Solar Impulse and Masdar share a visionary spirit and a common goal of advancing renewable energy."

Having accepted a challenge considered impossible by many, "the pilots are redefining the world's perception of what can be achieved through clean-tech innovation and of the possibilities of renewable energy," he added.

The oil-free aircraft's return to the skies also coincides with the signing of the Paris Agreement, the landmark agreement on addressing climate change secured at the COP21 meetings in Paris last December. Endit