Space Based Solar Panel - The World's Unlimited Energy Source In The Near Future?

We typically think a solar panel on the roof of someone's house converting sunlight into energy during the daytime sounds great. It is not so great however. Earth-based solar panels have their drawbacks. They don't work at night or if the sky is too cloudy. Plus, our atmosphere shields the Earth's surface from much of the sun's energy — bouncing some of the light back into space. Imagine what a Space-Based Solar Power converter could do. Don't imagine for too long because its about to come true.

Researchers have been looking seriously for renewable energy resources to provide power to everyone without poisoning the Earth. On this, some scientists think humans could be getting clean power collected from solar panels in space and beamed back down to Earth in our lifetime.

 Not only would the energy source be continuous, but it would also be clean and unlimited (that is, until the sun explodes).

This idea may sound like science fiction, and at one time it was. The thought of harnessing the power of the sun with giant solar collectors in space was pure fiction 75 years ago. But now, the day of space-based solar power may not be so far away. But now some industry startups like California-based Solaren are predicting it will be a reality by the end of the decade. The concept originated in a short story by sci-fi author Isaac Asimov. Asimov's 1941 story envisions a world where the Earth is powered by a beam of light that draws its energy directly from the sun.

 Present Solar Power Option Versus Space-Based Solar Power

Now imagine if we could put a solar panel in Earth orbit — around 22,000 miles up. What will be the effect.

"If you put the solar panel in space, it's going to be illuminated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 99% of the year," Paul Jaffe, a spacecraft engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, told Business Insider. Because the Earth's axis of rotation is tilted, Jaffe explains that "even on the night side of the Earth [the satellite could] be in sunlight almost all the time."

Jaffe predicts that individual space-based solar arrays would be able to produce from 250 megawatts to 5 gigawatts of energy. But since the sun is a continuous, renewable resource the "total amount of power that could be produced is effectively infinite," he says. Take New York City, for example, which requires 20 gigawatts of power. By Jaffe's calculation, as few as four arrays [see picture below] — if each provided 5 gigawatts — would be able to power the entire city.

 What will its investment cost be like?

The cost to build one space-based solar array is somewhat of an unknown but would likely be hundreds of millions of dollars. But once the first one is manufactured, there would probably be certain economies of scale that could make production of multiple arrays cheaper. 

The energy crises of the 1970s propelled the government to look into alternative energy sources as it started to become clear that oil was a limited resource and that its supply cold be subject to the whims of international politics. According to Jaffe, the conclusion at the time by NASA and the Department of Energy regarding space-based solar power technology was that it could be possible, but it would be very, very expensive.

In the intervening years, many nations studied space-based solar power, including Japan, China, and several European nations. "A lot of people have looked at this, but there has been a lot less actual development of hardware and the component technologies," said Jaffe.

In 2009, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced a series of goals to reduce the Navy's dependence on foreign oil and to increase its use of alternative energy. That same year, Jaffe received funding from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to improve the technology that would convert the solar energy collected in space into a different form of energy that could be transferred to Earth.

How The Technology Works

 

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