British invention moves solar power station in space a step closer
For more than eight decades, the idea of beaming an around-the-clock supply of solar power from space has fascinated people including Isaac Asimov, the science-fiction writer, and forward-thinking politicians.
However, while the price of solar panels has dropped drastically and the technology to wirelessly transmit power has improved, a crucial question has still to be answered: how do you build a large solar plant in the Earth’s orbit?
Space Solar, a British company, may have the answer. It hopes to assemble a power station in space using autonomous robots. To show that the idea is more than wishful thinking, it has tested the technology at a facility near Oxford.
The business, based in Didcot and backed by more than £10 million of government grants, aims to put a prototype solar power station into orbit in four years’ time. The system will use an array of solar panels that will be bigger than the International Space Station. Electricity will be converted into radiowaves and beamed to a receiving station on Earth.
The backbone of the giant structure would be a series of cubes built using structural trusses. To prove the concept, Space Solar created a “transport system”, in effect a machine that takes carbon tubes out of a “backpack” and gradually assembles the trusses.
In a demonstration at Culham, near Abingdon, the company worked with the UK Atomic Energy Authority to show robots using the trusses to build a pair of one-metre cubes.
“We’ve shown how you can build these bays on top of each other. We demonstrated that very successfully,” said Martin Soltau, Space Solar’s co-chief executive.
Harnessing the power of the sun has been a dream of mankind for years. Earth-based solar panels achieve that but a solar power station in space could be the future
NASA
Building the real power station would be on a much bigger and more challenging scale. The whole thing would be 4,000m long using 20m by 20m cubes.
The test is a sign that the idea is edging closer to reality. A £1.7 million, 18-month research project into the prototype, funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the UK Space Agency, has brought about advances in the design from assembly to wireless power. “It gives real confidence that this is viable economically and technically,” Soltau said.
The project team suggested the scheme could deliver electricity at a cost comparable with offshore windfarms.
Exactly where in the world will first receive power from such a system is still to be decided, but Reykjavík Energy of Iceland has agreed to negotiate on electricity from the prototype.
If the receiving station was built in the UK, it could be sited in the North Sea. The net-like structure could be between 1,000m and up to 3,500 metres across, Soltau said.
The government has backed the idea of space-based solar for three years. The concept last month enjoyed the backing of the Tony Blair Institute, which endorsed it as a “frontier and breakthrough energy solution” that is worth greater investment.
In the meantime, the sunny weather and Britain’s growing number of solar panels on Earth have helped to set a new solar power generation record. A peak of 13.57GW was generated on Saturday, beating the previous record of 12.2GW set on April 1.