How to harvest solar power? Beam it down from space!

Mehta has another solution for India’s chronic electricity shortage, one that does not involve power plants on the ground but instead massive sun-gathering satellites in geosynchronous orbits 22,000 miles in the sky.

The satellites would electromagnetically beam gigawatts of solar energy back to ground-based receivers, where it would then be converted to electricity and transferred to power grids. And because in high Earth orbit, satellites are unaffected by the earth’s shadow virtually 365 days a year, the floating power plants could provide round-the-clock clean, renewable electricity.
“This will be kind of a leap frog action instead of just crawling,” said Mehta, who is the director of India operations for Space Island Group, a California-based company working to develop solar satellites. “It is a win-win situation.”

American scientist Peter Glaser introduced the idea of space solar power in 1968.

NASA and the United States Department of Energy studied the concept throughout the 1970s, concluding that although the technology was feasible, the price of putting it all together and sending it to outer space was not.

“The estimated cost of all of the infrastructure to build them in space was about $1 trillion,” said John Mankins, a former NASA technologist and president of the Space Power Association. “It was an unimaginable amount of money.”

NASA revisited space solar power with a “Fresh Look” study in the mid-’90s but again found that even though the technology needed for the satellites had become significantly cheaper and more advanced, the up-front costs were still prohibitive, Mankins said. By 2002, the project was indefinitely shelved — or so it seemed.

“The conditions are ripe for something to happen on space solar power,” said Charles Miller, a director of the Space Frontier Foundation, a group promoting public access to space. “The environment is perfect for a new start.”

Skyrocketing oil prices, a heightened awareness of climate change and worries about natural resource depletion have recently prompted a renewed interest in beaming extraterrestrial energy back to Earth, Miller explained.

Russia, China, the European Union and India, according to the Pentagon report, are interested in the concept. And Japan, which has been pouring millions of dollars into space power studies for decades, is working toward testing a small-scale demonstration in the near future.

CNN