China has major space ambitions which have seen the country ramp up its space program in recent years. It has made it to the far side of the moon and laid claim to growing the first plants on the lunar surface, even though they didn’t last for very long. The country is now looking to put up a solar farm in space by 2025.
The idea of gathering solar power from space itself has long been discussed before. It’s already possible to take advantage of solar energy here on Earth but scientists believe that it would be more effective to harvest solar energy from space itself.
China’s state-backed Science and Technology Daily says that it’s going to be the first country to build a solar power station which will orbit the Earth at 36,000 kilometers. Scientists are planning to build and launch small power stations into the stratosphere between 2021 and 2025. They also have a megawatt-level station planned for 2030 and are aiming to launch a gigawatt-level station before 2050.
One substantial difference of having a solar power station in space is an immediate 50 percent gain in efficiency. There’s no night time or seasonal loss of sunlight up in space so the plants can thus provide an endless source of clean energy. The China Academy of Space Technology Corporation claims that such a system could achieve 99 percent supply reliability with six times the intensity of solar plants on Earth.
Filed in . Read more about Space.