April 17, 2009 -- The California Public Utilities Commission is considering a plan that would provide 200 megawatts of electricity -- enough for about 150,000 homes -- from solar power collected in space.
The company providing the power, Solaren Corp., of Manhattan Beach, Calif., has backing from Pacific Gas and Electric, the state's biggest energy utility, which last week filed a request with regulators to purchase power from Solaren's space-based network for a period of 15 years, beginning in 2016.
The value of the contract was not disclosed, but Solaren's director for energy services Cal Boerman, told Discovery News the price would be "slightly more," than the state's projected 2016 energy costs of 12.9 cents per kilowatt.
"PG&E said that our prices are in line with other renewables (renewable energy products) that they're purchasing," Boerman said, adding that "as we expand, we will become even more competitive."
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Solaren declined to discuss details of its project, but patents held by the firm describe technologies to keep an array of free-flying spacecraft aligned and in position. The components include a pair of foldable, inflatable mirrors -- each about one to two kilometers in diameter -- to collect sunlight and beam power down to Earth; a power module to generate electrical energy; and an emitter to convert electrical power into radio or optical waves that can be transmitted to Earth.
The various pieces of the network would automatically keep tabs on each other with radar and laser systems. To keep the components aligned, the firm is looking at using ion thrusters, the pressure of particles in the solar wind and/or electro-static forces, according to a patent for a space-based power system awarded in August 2005 and assigned to Solaren Corp.
Four heavy-lift rockets would be needed to haul the gear into orbit, Boerman said.
Boerman said the firm is seeking startup financing "in the billions of dollars." The contract with PG&E should help.
"Investors like that you have a contract to see all the electricity that you can deliver will be sold," Boerman said. "It's another plus."
The idea of collecting solar power in space and beaming it to Earth has been around for decades, but costs and technological hurdles have been too steep to overcome.
John Mankins, who oversaw NASA's Advanced Concepts Studies program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said a space solar power system would cost trillions of dollars if it were done using traditional, one-of-a-kind spacecraft design and manufacturing processes.
"Today, no one has had a business model that's made any sense," Boerman said. "We've taken a different approach."
The advantages of collecting solar power in space is that much more solar energy is available and that it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
PG&E, which is not investing any funds in the project, sees it as a no-risk deal.
"It has tremendous commercial potential if Solaren can make this commercially viable," said Jonathan Marshall, head of strategic communications for PG&E.
"This is a first of its kind," he added, "but some aspects of the technology are very well established."
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