China Has Plans For A Gigantic Solar Array In Space – CleanTechnica

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China has announced plans to build a giant solar power space station, which will be lifted into orbit piece by piece using that nation’s new heavy lift rockets. According to a report by Live Science, Chinese scientists have announced a plan to build an enormous solar power station in space that is one kilometer (0.6 miles) wide and will beam continuous energy back to Earth via microwaves. Because of its location above the Earth, it will be ten times more efficient at turning sunlight into electrical energy than land-based solar panels. In addition, it will harvest sunlight every second of every day, eliminating the intermittency problem that plagues solar power today.

The project, which will see its components placed into  a geostationary orbit above Earth, has been dubbed “another Three Gorges Dam project above the Earth.” The Three Gorges Dam, located in the middle of the Yangtze river in central China, is the world’s largest hydropower installation and generates 100 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. According to one NASA scientist, the dam is so large that, if completely filled, the mass of the water contained within would lengthen Earth’s days by 0.06 microseconds.

Lead scientist Long Lehao, the chief designer of China’s Long March rockets, said the new project would be “as significant as moving the Three Gorges Dam to a geostationary orbit 36,000 km (22,370 miles) above the Earth. This is an incredible project to look forward to,” during a lecture in October hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), as reported by the South China Morning Post. “The energy collected in one year would be equivalent to the total amount of oil that can be extracted from the Earth.”

China Faces Space-Based Solar Hurdles

Despite recent advances in the cost and efficiency of space-based solar power, the technology still faces fundamental limitations that will make it difficult to transmit all that lovely solar energy to the ground. Moisture in the atmosphere and clouds will absorb much of the microwave energy before it arrives at receiving stations on the ground.

Assembling a solar farm in space would require many launches using rockets capable of lifting heavy loads. To overcome this challenge, Long and his team are working on the development of the Long March-9 (CZ-9) reusable heavy lift rocket, which will have a lift capacity of at least 150 tons (136 metric tons). Besides being used for satellites, the rocket will also be key to China’s plans to reach the moon, where it wants to build an international lunar research base by 2035

Others Are Interested In The Technology

China is not the only nation making plans for solar satellite arrays. Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are exploring the idea in the US, while the European Space Agency and Japan’s JAXA space agency have also been investigating the technology. JAXA has scheduled the launch of a small, proof of concept satellite later this year to assess the feasibility of the technology.

The idea has been around for quite a while. 16 years ago, PG&E in northern California was interested in the idea. 5 years ago, the Naval Research Laboratory was also kicking the tires of the idea. More recently, the UK Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy commissioned a study by Frazer-Nash Consultancy that was released in September 2021. Entitled Space Based Solar Power—De-Risking the Pathway to Net Zero, the study identified the following as drivers in renewed interest the technology:

• A new political will exists now as countries seek diverse technologies to decarbonize their economies and reach net zero by 2050.
• The costs of commercial space launches have dropped dramatically as private companies enter the market.
• New highly modular solid-state solar-power satellite designs such as SPS-Alpha and CASSIOPeiA have been conceived for high-volume commercial manufacture. This also lowers costs.
• Technologies required to make SBSP a reality have matured. These include high-concentration solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, wireless power transmission, and space robotics.
• Countries view their ability to provide unlimited affordable energy from space to any point on the planet as a way to leverage global influence, evidenced by the fact that not only Britain and Europe have recently renewed their interest but also the US, China, Japan, and South Korea.

That study found the levelized cost of energy from space-based solar power would be lower than most conventional thermal generation sources and only slightly higher than traditional solar and wind power.

The Frazer-Nash study noted that “a $180 million defense research program lead by Northrop Grumman and the US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to develop and demonstrate technology including lightweight sandwich panel PV/RF modules, and lightweight extendable mirrors, under the SSPIDR (Space Solar-Power Incremental Development and Research) Project,” is underway. The US Naval Research Lab has also conducted power collection and conversion experiments in space using the X-37B space plane. NASA has commissioned its own study.

The UK has declared that two SBSP systems have demonstrated that beaming energy from space is technically possible. The SPS-Alpha designed by Mankins Space Technology in the US is one such system. The other is the CASSIOPeiA (constant aperture, solid-state, integrated, orbital phased array) developed by International Electric Company in the UK. Both are modular, solid-state designs that can be mass manufactured.

Space-Based Solar For All

The advantages of space-based solar are clear. Constant power all day every day is a very appealing idea. Yet as with most good ideas, the difference between theory and reality can be difficult to resolve. Not only is the amount of stuff that needs to be lifted into space enormous, getting that energy down to Earth is fraught with numerous hazards, not the least of which is making the transfer efficient enough so most of the energy doesn’t get wasted in the process.

Then there political issues to resolve. Is China planning to share all that lovely renewable energy with the rest of the world? If so, at what cost? Who will be responsible for keeping the giant solar installation in the sky safe from attacks by nefarious actors? Holding a power station ransom that supplies a big chunk of the energy needed to keep the global economy humming might appeal to some nations or international terrorist organizations. Last but certainly not least is the question of how to focus the downlink to Earth in such a way that people and animals nearby don’t accidentally get incinerated by all that microwave energy pouring down from above.

Ideally, the nations of the world would collaborate to build such space-based solar installations and share the energy equitably among all inhabitants of the Earth. If the global  community would do that and pursue strategies to cool the Earth by a degree or two, we could all live in peace and harmony for thousands of more generations and would not have to fly off to Mars to preserve our species. That’s a lovely dream, but it sounds a lot like the cover of a Popular Science magazine from the 1950s — full of promises but short on practicality. Still, the contrast between what China is doing to promote solar power and the “Drill, Baby, Drill” mentality that has the US in its grip is startling. One is focused on the future; the other is looking to the past. Only one of those visions is sustainable.