We like to keep you updated on Solar Impulse, the plane that is covered in (and powered) solar PV panels.

It’s been in design for some time now, with a prototype taking to the air last year, but this month the final product made its maiden flight. Taking off in Switzerland it returned two hours later having flown to just under 6,000 feet at a speed to 35 mph.

The pilot, Bertrand Picard, said: “An aeroplane like this is absolutely unique. And for the first time in history we have an aeroplane that is flying with no fuel day and night, showing the incredible potential of the clean technologies – all these technologies that the world can also use in order to reduce the dependency to fossil fuel and to be cleaner and solve a lot of problems of pollution.”

The goal of Solar Impulse is to prove that it is possible to fly completely around the globe without a drop of fossil fuel. With advances like this continually taking place, in the future, we could be seeing more and more mainstream vehicles using renewable technologies without any need for fossil fuels.   SunGift has already installed a number of solar car ports for customers and we expect this number to increase greatly as more people choose electric vehicles.

To find out more about Solar Impulse, visit www.solarimpulse.com

To find out how you reduce your reliance on fossil fuels by having a solar car port or solar PV on your house roof, contact a SunGift expert on 01392 213912, designteam@sungiftsolar.co.uk.