Your energy could soon come from space as ESA mulls plan for solar farms in orbit

Under the SOLARIS concept, solar power stations would be placed into geostationary orbit — that is, maintaining position above the same location on the Earth’s surface.

These would then harvest sunlight, in the same way solar panels do on Earth, before converting the energy into low-power density microwaves for wireless transmission down to receiver stations on the ground, from which the energy could enter the grid.

The ESA said: “The physics involved means that these satellites would have to be large, on the order of several kilometres in size — and the same being true for the collecting ‘rectennas’ on the Earth’s surface.”

Before such can be realised in practice, however, technical advancements are needed in various fields — from in-space manufacturing and solar panel efficiencies to high-power electronics and radio frequency beamforming.

In addition, studies will need to be undertaken to ensure that the low-power microwave beams would not pose a risk to animal or human health — nor to aircraft or satellites.

Early signs of the feasibility of the concept are promising, however, with a ground-based demonstration undertaken at an Airbus facility in Munich, Germany back in September having shown that it is possible to beam two kilowatts of power wirelessly to collectors knelt 100 feet away. It remains to be seen, however, whether such can be scaled up to send gigawatts of power over distances of tens of thousands of miles from orbit.

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Article source: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1700353/energy-space-solar-power-farm-orbit-esa-european-space-agency-solaris