Japan will start an experiment on receiving and transmitting solar energy from Earth orbit from 2025
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The Japanese space agency JAXA and the Japanese government intend to conduct an experiment in 2025 to receive and transmit solar energy from space to Earth, writes Nikkei. If successful, Japan will be the first country to master this technology.
The project is led by Kyoto University professor Naoki Shinohara, who has been working on the technology since 2009. The idea is to collect solar energy using small satellites placed in Earth’s orbit. They must transmit the stored energy in the form of microwaves to ground receiving stations. In theory, this will allow you to receive solar energy around the clock, regardless of weather conditions, since clouds do not prevent microwaves from reaching the Earth’s surface.
However, for several decades of work on this technology, scientists from different countries have not yet managed to achieve energy transfer over significant distances. Mr. Shinohara’s main success, for example, is the transmission of microwave energy on Earth over a distance of about 50 m in 2018. And so far, experiments are planned with energy transmission only for 1 km and 5 km.
In addition, the current level of technology development suggests that the panel area of the satellites should be about 2 square meters. km, and the cost of 1 GW of energy obtained in this way will be more than $7 billion.
The development of technology for the transfer of solar energy from Earth’s orbit is also being carried out in the USA (Air Force Research Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology) and in China (Chongqing University). Representatives of the European Space Agency also spoke about the intention to create a technology for obtaining solar energy from space.
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