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upstart writes:

How space solar panels could power the Earth with 24/7 clean energy:

Solar power has been a key part of humanity's clean-energy repertoire. We spread masses of sunlight-harvesting panels on solar fields, and many people power their homes by decorating their roofs with the rectangles.

But there's a caveat to this wonderful power source. Solar panels can't collect energy at night. To work at peak efficiency, they need as much sunlight as possible. So, to maximize these sun catchers' performance, researchers are toying with a plan to send them to a place where the sun never sets: outer space.

Theoretically, if a bunch of solar panels were blasted into orbit, they'd soak up the sun even on the foggiest days and the darkest nights, storing an enormous amount of power. If that power were wirelessly beamed down to Earth, our planet could breathe in renewable clean energy, 24/7.

[...] In the early 1900s, Russian scientist-mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was steadily churning out a stream of futuristic designs envisioning human tech beyond Earth. He's responsible for conjuring things like space elevators, steerable rockets and, you guessed it, space solar power.

Since Bell Labs first invented the first concrete "solar panel" in the '50s, international scientists have been working to make  Tsiolkovsky's sci-fi fantasy a reality. They include Japanese researchers, the United States military and a team from California Institute of Technology spearheading the Space Solar Power Project.

Space solar power "was investigated extensively in the late 1960s and the 1970s, sort of in the heyday of the Apollo program," said Michael Kelzenberg, senior research scientist on the project.

Unfortunately, due to the materials' weight and bulk, the era's technology wasn't advanced enough to cost-effectively achieve the feat. It would've been exceptionally difficult to send classic solar panels to space via a rocket without breaking the bank.

"The distinctively unique and defining feature of the Caltech approach is a focus on reducing the component mass by 10 to 100 times," said Harry Atwater, the project's principal investigator. "This is essential to reducing both the manufacturing and the launch costs to make space solar power economical."

Instead of employing a rocket to transport traditional solar panels to space, the Caltech team advocates a new type of panel that's lighter, more compact and foldable. They suggest dispatching into orbit a large number of these airy, mini solar panels resembling tiles.

[...] Of course, there's a long road ahead. Even if the team's 2022 experiment is successful, there are manufacturing costs to consider, as well as legal questions about taking up orbital space (there may be governmental restrictions). Questions around the practicality of replacing known power grids with space-solar power plants will also remain.

But at the end of that path, we may find something golden.

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