Question: Could we see a commercial solar powered plane in the near future, e.g. 5-10 years?

Christine Coonick answered on 7 Mar 2016:

That would be great wouldn’t it! You may have seen the travels of the Solar Impulse (solar powered plane) on the news. As the team have seen during their challenge to fly round the world it is storing the solar energy that is the key. Battery technology is coming on leaps and bounds, and at some point a battery will be developed that has a low weight to high storage capacity ratio. At the moment batteries are too big and too heavy to make a solar commercial flight plausible.