Skip to contents
Renewable Energy

Solar Panels Floating in Space Could One Day Power Your Home

The British Armys first ever solar farm at Leconfield, UK, Tuesday, June 2, 2020. The British Armys first ever solar farm is based at the Defence School of Transport (DST) in Leconfield and forms part of Project PROMETHEUS which will see three other such sites built across the UK and is one of the steps the Army is taking to achieve its target of carbon net zero by 2050.

(Bloomberg) —

Longi Green Energy Technology Co., the world’s biggest solar technology manufacturer, will send panels into space as the first step in plans to test the feasibility of harnessing the sun’s power in orbit and transmitting it back to Earth.

The Xi’an-based clean energy giant, which has helped China dominate the solar industry and drive down costs, will also study the use of its products in harsher environments, and assess their suitability for use in space programs, it said in a statement

Longi’s decision to establish a laboratory focused on the task could be a first step in the solar sector’s collaboration with China’s space program and toward off-planet power stations, said Wu Zhijian, president of the China Space Foundation, a government-backed agency under the China National Space Administration.

China Tests Tech That Could Beam Solar Power From Space to Earth

The prospect of harnessing solar power from space is attracting attention from industry and academics because it promises to remove the technology’s major drawback — that panels don’t operate effectively in darkness — by placing them into orbit with an unrestricted view of the sun. 

Chinese researchers in Shaanxi’s Xidian University said earlier this year that they had successfully tested a full-system model of a technology designed to transmit solar power from outer space. Their project captures sunlight high above the ground, converts it into microwave beams and transmits it through the air to a receiver station on the ground to be converted into electricity. It’s a process advocates hope can be be expanded to cover the long distances from orbiting panels back to Earth.

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology also launched a space solar program after a $100 million grant in 2013, while teams in nations including Japan, Russia and India are also studying the possibilities

Longi’s new laboratory will also consider plans for energy monitoring satellites and environmental verification from space.

–With assistance from Alex Millson.

© 2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Advertisement