PowerSat Makes Space Solar a Reality

A number of companies and research teams are developing on the possibility of harnessing the sun’s energy from space. One of these companies is PowerSat. PowerSat has filed provisional patents for two technologies which the company claims will help make space solar power less expensive.

The company has about $3 to $5 million to be used in developing wireless power transmission.

The space solar industry has been busy these past months. PowerSat’s announcement came after Solaren, another company engaged in space solar development, signed a deal to provide power to northern California utility PG&E last April. There’s also the Swiss company, Space Energy, that announced its plan to launch a prototype satellite in space over the next two to three years.

Solar power from space can provide unlimited, sustainable, and clean power. Unlike PV solar systems, the output will not depend on atmospheric conditions or cloud cover. In space, the sun’s energy will be five times more powerful than it is in any spot on the planet. The energy-capturing satellites (called PowerSats) will be able to receive a much greater amount of power, compared to a ground-based system of the same size.

It might sound complicated at first, but the idea is simple. Power satellites will be fitted with solar arrays that will generate direct-current electricity. This will be converted into radio-frequency energy and transmitted back to earth, the same way radio signals are sent to a radio. Once the radio frequency signal arrives at the receiving station, it will be converted back to DC electricity.

Space solar looks promising indeed, but it must first overcome some obstacles along its way. One challenge it faces is that investors see it as risky. It is still unproven, and no one wants to invest billions of dollars in it, to find out that it does not succeed as was hoped.

PowerSat thinks it has solved the money problem with its two new technologies. The company claims that these can take off around $1 billion in launch and operation costs, for a 2.5-megawatt power station in space.

The first technology is BrightStar, which will use a cluster of small satellites instead of one large satellite. The small satellites will work together and transmit power as a group.

The second technology they unveiled is Solar Power Orbital Transfer, or SPOT. This will save on fuel costs because with SPOT, satellites will be using their solar arrays to power their electronic thrusters.

PowerSat plans on launching a prototype in 2015, and mass producing their system between 2019 and 2021. It estimates that a 2.5-gigawatt system will cost around $4 to $5 billion.

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