First Solar Boat's Expedition Around The Globe
On 12th October, 2011 evening, SSA was invited to attend the opening ceremony of the century's first innovation of a catamaran built solely on solar panels who travelled around the globe, citing Singapore as their designated pit stop. If yacht enthusiasts have been following the news, yes, it is the much coveted catamaran TÛRANOR* PlanetSolar. 
Held at Singapore's biggest shopping centre, Vivo City, it is the best location where people can relax over F&B, shopping, and even get to enjoy beautiful sunsets as visitors embark/disembark from the cruise centre, a stone's throw to Singapore's newest playground, Sentosa. Sitting at the waters just beside the promenade is the incredible innovation of Planet Solar.
In fact, the idea of eco-green and using solar panels is not new and is manifested in the design of some of the houses in Europe, with the trend catching up in Asia. For Singapore, she embarked on a flagship R&D project under its Green Builiding Masterplan hailed by the agency BCA Building and Construction Authority. A S$10 million was spent to retrofit an existing facility to incorporate some of the latest energy-efficient inventions to create Singapore's first zero-energy building back in 2009.
However, no one has approached the idea on a catamaran of this size. Planet Solar demonstrates that looking ahead is a road less travelled and with that, they pioneered the use of sustainable energy technology on water. Their boldness in vision showed that high-performance solar mobility can be realised today by making innovative use of existing materials and technology.
The expedition was especially made to Singapore with a purpose to do some maintenance works on Planet Solar. After travelling to so many countries, it was time to do some maintenance works to this vessel in order to travel further. Thanks to their team's confidence in this liittle red dot, Singapore is very delighted to have the opportunitiy to view this innovation at Vivo City. 
In fact the name of TÛRANOR* PlanetSolar was derived from the "Lord of the Rings" saga and translates as “the power of the sun” and "victory". The success of her expedition is testament to her name, and is definitely a pride to the initiator of this innovation.
Equally important is the whole idea behind Planet Solar is to expound the idea of being and going green and conserving natural resources; borrowing Mr. Jean-Francois Affolter's words, Professeur of heig-vd, we must think ahead on the use of our limited resources. That being said, it aptly sums up that Planet Solar indeed delivers, and this injects confidence to possible new projects which SSA looks forward to in the future, with their team returning to Singapore. 
For more information, please log on to www.planetsolar.org
