Solar Plant in Space Gets Go-Ahead
California regulators on Thursday went where no regulators have gone before — approving a utility contract for the nation’s first space-based solar power plant.
The 200-megawatt orbiting solar farm would convert solar energy collected in space into radio frequency waves, which would be beamed to a ground station near Fresno, Calif. The radio waves would then be transformed back into electricity and fed into the power grid. [Green Inc]
A Southern California start-up called Solaren will loft components for the solar power plant into orbit and sell the electricity it generates to Pacific Gas and Electric, the major utility in Northern California, under a 15-year contract. The project is supposed to be turned on in 2016.
Solaren, founded by veterans of Hughes Aircraft, Boeing and Lockheed, plans to deploy a free-floating inflatable Mylar mirror one kilometer (0.62 miles) in diameter. This will collect and concentrate sunlight on a smaller mirror, that in turn will focus the rays on photovoltaic modules.
In a good sign for another cutting-edge utility energy project, California commissioners on Thursday also approved a request by Southern California Edison to spend $30 million to finance studies on what would be the world’s first power plant to convert petroleum coke into hydrogen to generate electricity. The carbon emissions would be captured and used to enhance recovery of oil from wells near Bakersfield, Calif.
Heck of a thing. Never heard of or thought about sticking a mirror in space for solar power. Sounds like a productive idea to me.
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