Solar-Powered Plane's Cross-Country Flight

        Researchers at Moffett Air Field at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, announced on March 28 that Solar Impulse, an ultra-lightweight plane solely powered by solar power, is planned to fly coast-to-coast this spring. The plane is claimed to require no fuel and solely rely on solar panels and battery power.
        Two Swiss pilots of the Solar Impulse, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, desire to complete a flight beginning from Moffett Field to New York City. Along the way, it is planned to stop by in the following locations: Phoenix, Arizona, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Washington, D.C., and either Nashville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia, or St. Louis. The plane is set to fly on May 1 and plans to land in the Big Apple in early July.
         Solar Impulse has a wingspan equivalent to a 747 jetliner, the weight of a station wagon, and the power needs of a small scooter. The solar panels across its wings harness power from the sun during the day, and lithium-polymer batteries store that energy for overnight trips. A carbon-fiber material formed in a honeycomb structure makes up the bulk of the plane, which allows for its feather-weight.
        In 2010, the plane completed a 26 overnight-hour flight and in 2012, it flew from Switzerland to Morocco with no fuel.

New Solar Gear Introduced

            Inverters are the components within powered devices like solar panels and batteries, which helps convert the power generated into usable power. There has been many research efforts involving solar panel inverters as some people may choose to move from a single large central inverter to smaller "microinverters" embedded on each solar panel. However, Empower Micro Systems, a chip startup that has been running for a year and a half now, has furthered this research and developed a low-voltage solar microinverter based on new chip designs, which has became more reliant, cost-effective, and efficient.

            Empower Micro Systems CCO Jon Bonanno has claimed that the company's inverter technology "is a quantum change in how solar is done." This newly developed chip component can be applied anywhere from a solar panel system to a rack or frame. Bonanno also notes that the inverter is 5x more reliable, 5% more efficient, and costs 20% less than traditionally used inverters. The overall solar system cost can be lowered because of the rising potential of a lower inverter cost, in addition to the dropping prices already of solar panels.
           Empower Micro Systems does not plan on manufacturing the inverter box itself but the company tries to respectfully adopt Intel's code in churning out the chips inside the inverter devices. Bonanno is confident of the power of the inverter technology, which is known as the "Universal Micro Power Inverter." He believes it can "replace all solar inversion options, hands down." The key technologies of the solar inverter includes how the system on a chip synchronizes and controls the power flow at a low-voltage rate as well as the design of the inverter box.
           Bonanno remarks that the company has already signed one agreement with a "top-three" module maker (and is in discussions with many module makers and product vendors) to bring this hardware into the market. This year, it is planned for the inverter to be certified and could be produced in pilot production by the third quarter of 2013.