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HARNESSING SOLAR ENERGY FROM SPACE
Martin Soltau of the Space Energy Initiative explains how beaming solar power back from space could boost net zero ambitions and provide energy security
It sounds like part of a science fiction plot, but by the end of this year work will have started on a UK space energy system that will continually harvest solar power from the sun and beam it back to earth to be used to power our homes and businesses.
The Space Energy Initiative (SEI), based at the Satellite Applications Catapult at Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire is to benefit from the UK government's awarding of £3 million in grant funding for Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) projects.
SBSP collects solar power through a constellation of large satellites in a high earth orbit and beams it securely to a fixed point on the earth. It promises to deliver clean energy, day and night, throughout the year and in all weathers.
Martin Soltau, co-chair at Space Energy Initiative (SEI), said: “Increasingly, it is being realised that getting to net zero is incredibly difficult and it is important that we have energy security with affordable and resilient sources of energy.
The SEI has planned a 12-year roadmap, starting by the end of this year, which aims to have its first operational power station in space by 2035, before moving on to a period of rapid production and scaling.
The team says that by 2050 a total of 25 per cent of the UK’s energy could be generated from space.
The project was initially sparked by a feasibility report, published last autumn, compiled by Surrey-based Frazer-Nash Consultancy and commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Martin said: “When we completed the study, we realised the government would need to be reassured that industry was behind this ambitious concept, even though the findings were very positive. “A colleague and I set up the SEI to show the Government that serious players in academia, industry and the research sector are fully behind this and to bring the energy and space sectors together.
“We want to demonstrate and build a capable organisation that can build a strong UK-led project with UK leadership and international partners.”
The SEI now has more than 60 nationwide partners, including the UK government, and a governing advisory board. Space Solar Ltd has been established to lead the development, manage IP, accept investment and place contracts with suppliers.
Partners with a strong connection to South East England (outside London) include Airbus, CGI, Deloitte, Oxford Space Systems, Reaction Engines, Surrey Satellite Technology, Surrey Space Centre, University of Southampton and the University of Surrey.
Martin said: “Space Solar Ltd will attract the funding and then SEI members will be used within a procurement framework to deliver a development programme.
“This is a £10 billion programme that is going to require a huge range of engineering skills from all the engineering disciplines and will require wider skill sets from outside engineering such as legal, economic and communications.
“There’s a really strong network of highly capable organisations that are in the SEI and many others outside will have a role to play.”
The vision of the programme, however, goes beyond providing solar energy back to earth.
New economic frontiers
Martin says it could open a new economic frontier by developing the capability to assemble large systems in space.
He said: “The capability of today’s spacecraft is limited by the payload capacity of a single rocket and also the amount of energy you have up there, which is very constrained.
“If you can suddenly start assembling things from multiple launches to create a very capable spacecraft–like a solar-powered satellite then a whole new economic frontier is enabled by being able to assemble and even manufacture things in space.”
The SEI, in its economic modelling of the project, anticipates a spill-over effect from the project to other land and sea-based industries.
It is expected to lead to advances in autonomous robotics which could also be used in challenging underwater environments or for nuclear decommissioning.
A programme of this size, scale and ambition is not without its challenges with funding, international collaboration and public acceptance all key issues.
The process of beaming energy back from the sun needs to rapidly develop and improvements in space transport, such as the US-based SpaceX Starship programme, are essential.
He said: “There are a number of major challenges that we are addressing.
“There is a need for international standards and regulation to ensure the responsible deployment of these very large systems in space.
“Public and private funding is critical, and we need really patient capital as this will require a lot of funding over a long timescale and there won’t be much of a payback until the latter stages.
“We have never built something this large in space before. It will be five times the mass of the International Space Station.
“While we can see how it can be done through a modular approach, assembly in orbit has never been done before.”
Until recently the UK did not have an established programme around space-based solar power. However the US, China and Japan are all making significant advances in this field.
