Space-Based Solar Power. Really?

The news: Space-based solar power could become a reality within 10 years, according to the Swiss company Space Energy, which plans to put a prototype satellite into low-earth orbit to convert solar energy into microwaves and transmit it to Earth to be moved onto the power grid.

The Space 2.0 connection: Juice from the sun (with nary an orange or Anita Bryant in evidence – click the link if you’re too young to get the joke). Proving this technology would definitely meet the 8th Continent Project’s mission, “Bringing Space Down to Earth.”

An artist's rendition of solar collector satellites.

Here’s an excerpt from the summary on Space Energy’s newly unveiled website:

Space Energy, Inc. seeks to harness the benefits of a new source of renewable energy in the form of Space-Based Solar Power. The company has begun to assemble a world-class team with a directive to develop, own, and operate the first Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) satellites. We plan to provide base-load, regional, captive, and emergency electrical power to customers around the world, at affordable market prices. Leading SBSP experts have identified its key benefits as:

• The ability of the solar arrays to remain in sunlight 24 hours a day
• The ability to deliver power on demand without the need for complex or large-scale terrestrial infrastructure

The company plans to develop SBSP satellites to generate and transmit electricity to receivers on the Earth’s surface. To do this, the company plans to create and launch a prototype satellite, targeted for the year 2011, into low earth orbit (LEO).

After the prototype has been successfully demonstrated, the company will enter into power supply contracts with customers and launch larger-scale, commercial-strength satellites.

Space Energy is based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, near Zurich; its principals include Swedish real estate developer Stephan Tennsel and Peter Sage, a fitness entrepreneur from the United Kingdom.

Sage told UniverseToday.com’s Nancy Atkinson that his company will prove space-based solar power’s commercial viability.

“The biggest challenge for SBSP is making it work on a commercial level in terms of bottom line,” said Sage, “i.e., putting together a business case that would allow the enormous infrastructure costs to be raised, the plan implemented, and then electricity sold at a price that is reasonable. I say ‘reasonable’ and not just ‘competitive’ because we’re getting into a time where selling energy only on a price basis isn’t going to be the criteria for purchase.”

Currently, there are times in the US when electricity is sold wholesale for close to a dollar a kilowatt during peak usage or times of emergency when power needs to be shipped around the national grid. Sage said SBSP will never be cost comparable with the current going rate of 6 or 7 cents a kilowatt due to the enormous set-up costs.

“We believe we can get it to a reasonable price, a fair market price as the demand for energy increases,” Sage said.

Space Energy’s current timetable calls for closing the funding round for construction of the demonstration unit by the end of the first quarter, Sage said.