A project by the Space Energy Initiative (SEI), a collaboration of space companies and leading academics, is putting forward an innovative way to harness electricity from solar farms located in space and beamed down to Earth from satellites using microwaves.
► Ambitious plan to harvest energy from solar farms in space
► Electricity would be beamed down to Earth with microwaves
Solar panels in space can collect more energy than those located on the Earth’s surface as they are undiluted by the atmosphere. The satellites would be able to provide about two gigawatts of power each – about the same amount as a nuclear power station.
The Cassiopeia project is bidding to attract some of the £3 million of funding the government announced for space-based solar power projects, earlier this year. Experts have already concluded that such a plan is viable and estimate that by 2050, satellite-based solar power could be supplying 100% of the world’s power.
The satellites would be made up of hundreds of thousands of small modules, produced in factories on Earth and assembled in space by autonomous robots. The robots would also carry out servicing and maintenance. Solar energy would be converted into high frequency radio waves before being beamed down and converted into electricity.
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