You know what I mean / Solar energy—but seriously

Solar energy is the big buzzword right now. I can’t quite shake the suspicion that it might be nothing more than a sedative to soothe our collective guilty conscience. We’re all polluters. Even green politicians are said to take a flight now and then. In model aviation, a wide variety of enthusiasts have conducted successful experiments with solar-powered model airplanes. It’s a wonderful thing. The very best of them flew even in rather overcast weather or even in the rain. If the model is equipped with a backup battery, the fun can continue. But eventually, the flight comes to an end because the battery is empty—or too small to provide enough energy for a night flight until the next sunrise—and these limitations became apparent during world record attempts. Manned aviation has captured the interest of the aviation community with a range of interesting electrically powered aircraft. Wings and tail surfaces equipped with solar cells are being used with varying degrees of success. Let’s not forget our solar flight pioneers Bertrand Piccard and André Boschberg, who circumnavigated the globe in Solar Impulse. A longer stay in Hawaii is said to have been necessary because of the batteries. I don’t know the details. But I do know about batteries. If, as the text states, a solar citizens’ initiative serves only “production” and ignores the storage problem, then—at least since Solar Impulse—it is either quite foolish or disingenuous. After all, our large reservoirs serve as storage facilities, and their expansion has been blocked in some cases for years. In addition, large amounts of electricity must be transmitted. This requires power lines—which aren’t exactly a boon to the landscape either. Local battery storage systems—including electric vehicle batteries—are only just beginning to emerge. Even at the solar flight youth camp in the Appenzell region, which we organized together with friends, our young engineers learned that solar energy can only truly work in conjunction with an electricity storage system. I hope that today, as ambassadors of this honest insight, they will help replace the “political solar initiatives” with realistic ones.

Emil Giezendanner

redaktion@modellflugsport.ch