Japanese space agency is serious about capturing solar power in space and bring it down to Earth. Japan intends to do this by 2030, using microwaves or laser beams.

 

The government has selected a group of companies and research team for turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in few decades.

Japan has been a front-runner in solar and other forms of renewable energy and this year has set ambitious targets for greenhouse gas reduction.

But Japan’s most ambitious idea till now is the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which selections of photovoltaic dishes many square kilometres in size would linger in geostationary orbit outside Earth’s atmosphere. “Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe this system will help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming,” researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have reported.

The solar cells would collect the solar energy, which is at least five times stronger in space than on Earth, and bring it down to the ground using laser beams or microwaves. These would be caught by antennae, situated in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs, said Tadashige Takiya, a spokesman at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The researchers are aiming a 1GW system, comparable to a medium-sized atomic power plant that would generate electricity at 8 yen per kilowatt-hour, six times less expensive than its present cost in Japan.

The project charted several steps that would need to be taken before the launch in 2030. Within several years, “a satellite designed to test the transmission by microwave should be put into low orbit with a Japanese rocket,” said Tatsuhito Fujita, one of the JAXA researchers.

The next thing scheduled for 2020, is to launch and test a large flexible photovoltaic structure with 10 MW power capacity followed by a 250 MW prototype.

This would help in gauging the project’s financial feasibility, officials said. The goal is to produce electricity cheap enough to compete with other alternative energy sources.