Solar panels installed in space could operate almost without interruption, thanks to sunlight ten times more intense than on Earth, while avoiding periods of night and bad weather. This vidéographic explains. VIDEOGRAPHICS
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:09 Space-based solar panels could operate almost continuously using sunlight
00:13 which is 10 times more intense than on Earth, while avoiding night and bad weather.
00:18 The basic concept is to put solar panels in a high geostationary orbit to produce electricity
00:26 which is converted to microwaves and beamed to Earth receiving stations
00:30 where it is converted back into electricity and fed into the grid.
00:34 This wireless transfer could also allow power to be sent to remote locations on Earth
00:40 and even to the Moon and other planets.
00:43 A single solar power satellite of the planned scale would generate around 2 gigawatts of power
00:49 enough to supply more than 1 million homes.
00:52 It would take more than 6 million solar panels on the Earth's surface to generate the same amount.
00:57 The biggest challenge is the large size of the structures required.
01:01 A single solar power satellite might extend more than a kilometre across
01:06 and weigh thousands of tonnes, with the receiver station covering an area more than 10 times larger.
01:12 For comparison, the International Space Station weighs over 400 tonnes and is 109 metres by 73 metres.
01:20 [Music]
01:22 [Music]
01:24 [Music]
01:26 [Music]
01:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]