Dec
10
Space Based Solar Energy Deal Gets The Regulatory OK
December 10, 2009 | 6 Comments
Late last week after a 6 ½ month wait, the California Public Utilities Commission approved Pacific Gas & Electric’s power purchase agreement with Solaren. If Solaren successfully deploys its space-based solar collectors, the deal would be the first of its kind and the first commercial space based energy production at commercial scale.
PG&E has contracted to buy 1,700 gigawatt hours per year for 15 years from Solaren produced by the space-based solar arrays. The arrays will have a generating capacity of 200 megawatts. While that’s smaller than a full scale nuclear or natural gas plant its enough to supply thousands of homes. The anticipated date of operation is amazingly, June of 2016. That’s not so far out to see if the plan can be made to work.
Space-based solar is an idea that’s been around for decades, and that’s being pursued by companies and researchers around the world. The key advantage over land-based solar or wind power is that space based solar can generate renewable energy around the clock. Space based solar also could collect as much as 7 tiles more power per area unit as the collector isn’t blocked by the atmosphere.
Space based solar is as close to infinite energy and power production as man will get unless man’s fusion effort gets very good, well past breakeven.
Politically speaking, the California Public Utilities Commission gave the go-ahead to the project in an effort to meet the state’s aggressive renewable energy goals. If Solaren can pull it off, California could really get to fully renewable power over time.
For consumers, a PG&E representative on Thursday said that the utility will only pay Solaren if it delivers the power adding the cost of the electricity is competitive with land-based renewable energy sources. It’s a vague, but hopeful comment.
The Solaren plan expects to use satellites equipped with solar photovoltaic panels and mirrors to generate the electricity, which in turn is transmitted via microwaves to a ground receiver station in Fresno County, Calif. The receiver then converts the microwave energy to electricity and then feed into the power grid.
Solaren is run by veterans from aerospace companies. The engineers have designed a relatively lightweight system around a Mylar mirror that’s 1 kilometer in diameter to concentrate light onto the solar panels to squeeze more electricity from them. I wouldn’t count them out on the technology – what will matter is the price and profit, if the profit can be made. In any case the lessons will be of enormous value.
Jonathan Marshall from PG&E said, “If this works, it would be a real game changer. But for our customers, there’s really no or little risk, so it’s worth supporting something that has credible people behind it with years of experience who think they can make it work,”
Solaren’s CEO Gary Spirnak said the company plans to run pilot tests before an actual launch, drawing on company employees’ experience in aerospace. Spirnak said, “Once in geosynchronous orbit, a series of SSP (space solar power) pilot plant system tests will validate the satellites and ground receive station functions and verify performance, safety and key parameters to ensure successful operations. When we complete these steps, we will then be ready to deliver power to PG&E in 2016,”
Space based power offers enormous hope and potential. No fuel cost, no energy from earth sourced from plants, animals or people. One just has to get the equipment up there and make it work.
But for Solaren, success might be fleeting. The opportunity to power civilization without earth inputs for the energy or fuel would be a revolution. Solaren will be watched intensely, should they succeed, and it looks like the intellectual power is there, others will be sure to follow, and some will be better and even more efficient and costs might come down.
Lets wish Solaren success; they are the only true competition to compare with nuclear fission and fusion. Let the fight get underway – the fight’s about construction costs – and driving that down where fuel costs are such small factors will benefit the economy in a fundamental way. Cheap energy should be a political imperative.
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‘Space based solar also could collect as much as 7 times more power per area unit as the collector isn’t blocked by the atmosphere.’
The above statement is new to me – not even close to correct is it?
The project got regulatory OK? The headline is totally smoke – they just said that if the power was competitive PG&E could buy it.
İ hope PG&E is not being allowed to invest any funds whatsoever in this until it is a bit father along than just dreams!
Interesting point from Russ. But checking the available spectrum and the energy, seven is times is a valid but optimal multiplier. The atmosphere and the magnetosphere are significant barriers.
No, its less than a factor of 2 increase in power density. The 7x more claim depends largely on the fact that the space base solar power system would have 3-5x higher capacity factor compared to typical land based solar systems.
Curiously, the space based solar idea doesn’t offer significant area savings on the planet due to the very large area required for the terrestrial absorber. The real question therefore is whether this can compete with land based solar with storage and HVDC such as solar thermal with thermal storage or PV farms with pumped hydro. Once properly sited, a solar farm with storage is quite dependable and one can use biogas for occasional weeks of prolonged clouds. It seems to me that such a combination would be much more practical than space solar power.