A new space power station that would provide “constant power” has passed a critical milestone as it moved an inch closer to its success.
Oxfordshire-based Space Solar aims to provide power to more than a million homes by the 2030s with mile-wide complex of mirrors and solar panels orbiting 22,000 miles above the planet, reports Sky News.
However, its super-efficient design for harvesting constant sunlight – called CASSIOPeiA – needs the system to rotate towards the sun, whatever its position, while still sending power to a fixed receiver on the ground.
The system has been shown to work for the first time at Queen’s University Belfast where a wireless beam successfully “steered” across a lab to turn on a light.
Martin Soltau, the company’s founder, told Sky News: “This is a world first. You can get constant energy all the time. This is really going to have a substantial impact on our future energy systems.”
The project, expected to cost £32bn ($41bn), will use solar panels in space to capture significantly more energy compared to those on the ground due to higher light intensity and the absence of atmospheric interference like clouds or night.
Even with some energy loss during transmission back to Earth, space-based solar energy far surpasses ground-based generation.
The ability to generate power continuously makes space-based solar energy appealing for supporting ground-based renewables as a reliable baseload.
At present, nuclear energy and gas turbines provide the baseload for the grid but produce radioactive waste or carbon dioxide respectively.
Mr Soltau added: “This is this is why the government is so excited by the prospect of space-based solar power. Not only is it very, capable in that it’s helping to make the whole energy system work more effectively.
“But the cost (of electricity) is about quarter of that from nuclear.”
Until now, even the thoughts of building a 2,000-tonne solar power station in space were dismissed as science fiction.
But Mr Soltau claims the company is in conversation with SpaceX about using Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built.
Around 68 launches are predicted to transport parts for assembling a power station in orbit using robots. Additionally, the cost of launching items into orbit is anticipated to decrease significantly, possibly as low as 1 percent of what it was 20 years ago.
He added: “It’s a complete game changer. We’ll be able to do things in space that just weren’t feasible even a decade ago.”
