Solar power stations in orbit are one step closer to reality with the California Public Utilities Commission’s recent approval of electricity utility PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) purchasing electricity from space-based solar collectors provided by Solaren.
The world’s first solar power from orbit could be on the grid by June 2016, as PG&E plans to purchase 1,700 gigawatt hours per year for 15 years, beaming the energy down to a rectenna receiver in Fresno County, CA. The deal is brokered to help PG&E meet the California target of 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010, rising to 33% by 2020.
Solaren’s engineers propose a 1km (0.62mile) diameter concentrating mirror, high efficiency solar cells and a microwave converter array to beam the converted sun energy to the planet. Solaren plans on a series of demonstrators and prototypes flying in orbit to check out the technology, starting around 2012.
To read more about space based solar power:
Japan's Solar Space Power
Solar Power From Space
Solar Satellite Reality Check
It takes much bigger launch vehicles to get to geo orbit but it is the best place to be for such a facility. Maintaining a beam focus on a 100-200m (328-984ft) diameter target would be a significant challenge from geo-orbit, especially with such a large structure subjected to solar wind pressure. Orbital impact from micro-meteoroids and performance degradation to the solar panels from exposure to ultra-violet radiation would also be significant over its lifetime. If it ever got launched and went out of control, then it would disrupt all the communications satellites in geo orbit as it slowly drifted at that orbit height. Great idea, big payback but also enormous technical problems to overcome. Good sci-fi material though.
written by tjw , December 07, 2009
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written by solargardenlandscape , December 06, 2009