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The possibilities don’t end there. Although we currently depend on Earth’s materials to build power plants, scientists are also evaluating the use of resources from space for production, such as materials found on the Moon.
But one of the biggest challenges ahead will be bringing power back to Earth. The plan is to convert electricity from solar cells into energy waves and use electromagnetic fields to transfer them to an antenna on the earth’s surface. The antenna will then convert the waves back into electricity. Researchers led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have already developed designs and demonstrated an orbiter system that should be able to do this.
There is still a lot of work to be done in this area, but the goal is that solar power plants in space will become a reality in the coming decades. Researchers in China have designed a system called Omega, which they aim to make operational by 2050. This system should be able to deliver 2 GW of power to the Earth’s grid at peak performance, which is a huge amount. To produce that much energy with solar panels on Earth, you would need more than six million of them.
Smaller solar-powered satellites, such as those designed to power lunar rovers, may be operational even earlier.
Around the world, the scientific community is devoting time and effort to developing solar power plants in space. Our hope is that one day they can be a vital tool in our fight against climate change.
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Amanda Jane Hughes is a lecturer in energy engineering at the University of Liverpool, where she the research includes the design of solar cells and optical instruments. Stefania Soldini is a teacher in aerospace engineering from the University of Liverpool, and his experience includes numerical simulations for the design and guidance of space missions, navigation and control, asteroids and solar sail missions.
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This article originally appeared on The Conversation, and is republished under a Creative Commons license. This is also why this story doesn’t have an estimate of its carbon emissions, as Future Planet stories usually do.
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