A US firm is planning to develop and launch space solar power technology, which would involve an orbiting solar farm providing 1,000 Megawatts of energy to US residents back on Earth.  The project was given a major boost this week when a prominent utilities firm agreed that it would purchase space-generated solar energy. 

The firm behind this, Solaren, plans to launch its satellite in seven years time.  Of its 1,000 MW capacity, the energy platform would provide one-fifth of this to PG&E (California-based company Pacific Gas and Electric).

Space Solar Power 

Solaren’s space solar power station would not produce electricity directly, but would gather energy, transforming this into transmittable frequencies and transmitting these to a receiver on the ground.  Here, the frequencies would be transformed into electricity and fed into the US grid.

Scientists have been exploring space solar technologies for many decades now - NASA researchers especially, having identified that beyond the earth, sunlight is there to be harnessed almost without barrier.   However, while the cost of developing and implementing such technologies has proved to be a major stumbling block for space solar developers, Solaren alleges that its design involves both size and weight reductions, lowering the cost.  It replaces the cables and other connecting material found on other designs with space, essentially:  the main elements of the satellite being free-floating and kept in position by remote control.  In terms of the photovoltaic side – a vast mirror directs light onto a bank of solar cells, and this mirror is able to be enlarged once in position and deflated at other times.

Solar Technology

Solaren’s solar technology is yet to receive state regulatory approval but providing this goes ahead (the closing date, effectively, is October 31st 2009), the firm’s collaboration with PG&E will enter a 15-year-long contract period. 

According to one figure, the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology’s Professor Philip Eames, Solaren’s space solar technology represents “an exciting and feasible idea, with nice new ways of making the reflectors lighter.” As far as Brian Cherry of Pacific Gas and Electric is concerned, meanwhile, it stands as a “breakthrough in the renewable power industry.”

Solaren itself is now seeking investors to meet the technology’s projected $5 billion development costs. 

Enviro News will bring you further coverage of this potentially revolutionary environmental measure once more facts become known.