Space solar power may solve key renewables challenge

Significance Using satellites to collect solar power in space and transmit it to earth to generate electricity overcomes a serious limitation of terrestrial renewable energy: its intermittency. As such, it could enable transition to a wholly renewable energy system. Impacts Design concepts vary, but generally envisage each satellite generating an amount of electricity on a par with a nuclear power plant. Placing critical national infrastructure in space would both hasten the militarisation of space and add urgency to arms control initiatives. Large-scale funding for SBSP would spur development of supporting technologies and spin-offs, including robotics and launch systems.

Modular Line-Focused Space Solar Power Satellite

The Space Solar Power Satellite is an ultra-large space structure, which collects sunlight directly in space and then transmits it into the ground. Since the idea was invented in 1968, scientists around the world have proposed several typical conceptual design models. Nevertheless, the conceptual models have not been implemented for technological, manufacturing, and cost reasons. This paper presents a novel Space Solar Power Satellite scheme with modular line-focused concentrators and low concentration photovoltaic modules. First, the line-focused mode is analyzed and the optical performance of the circular trough concentrator is evaluated via ray-trace technique. Then, shape optimization for the cell array based on the Bézier curve is carried out to improve the optical property. Numerical examples indicate that the optimized cell array could obtain high power collection efficiency and suitable energy distribution. Moreover, the area of the photovoltaic cell array is reduced, which is conducive to cost reduction. Furthermore, modular design is conducted on the circular trough concentrator. Finally, the primary scheme of the novel Space Solar Power Satellite is designed with the previous modular concentrator and optimized cell array.