The latest developments in solar tech might help solve our energy needs.
In November, top-level European science ministers will meet in Paris in order to decide the future of the European Space Agency. In particular, they will discuss the feasibility of the project Solaris. This project consists in building a commercial power station in orbit where satellites would convert sunlight into power and beam it down to Earth, offering a potential solution to Europe’s future energy security.
The space industry has always been at the forefront of solar power development. Vanguard 1, for example, launched by Americans in 1958, was the fourth satellite in orbit and the first to generate its power by using solar energy. This event contributed to making solar panels the primary way of powering spacecraft. However, Vanguard 1’s solar cells converted just 9% of the captured sunlight into electricity but today the efficiency of this mechanism has more than doubled and continues to increase, while the cost of fabrication has been falling. According to Jochen Latz, a partner at management consultant McKinsey & Company, if this technology continues to develop, in 2050 more than 40% of the energy in the EU will come from solar power, making it the single largest energy source.
However, there are some problems to consider, for example, how to utilize this technology at night. According to Ekins-Daukes, associate professor at the school of photovoltaic and renewable energy engineering at the University of New South Wales, Australia, a solar cell could generate electricity from the emission of infrared rather than absorbing the sunlight and this would work perfectly at night. This would be the world’s first demonstration of thermal radiative power. If such devices were installed on rooftops, they would capture enough energy to power the whole house at night, bringing modest savings not only for each family but for the population of an entire country.
Another obvious problem with solar power is that some days will be cloudy. As a result, McClean, chief executive of UFODrive, an all-electric car rental company, makes a scheme called Vehicle-to-Grid – V2G – which uses an electric vehicle (EV) battery to store excess energy generated by solar panels on a house’s roof and then transfer it back into the house. when needed in the evening.
Furthermore, solar energy can also be used to produce sustainable fuels for vehicles. Virgil Andrei of the Cambridge University chemistry department and his colleagues have developed a thin “artificial leaf” that draws inspiration from photosynthesis. In artificial leaves, the output is syngas or synthetic gas which can be used to produce numerous fuels through various industrial processes.
The artificial leaves themselves are made up of materials called perovskites. Modern perovskites can function as solar cells and may even replace silicon in solar panels of the future as they can be made more easily and in thin, flexible layers.
Since the start of the space race, the idea of space solar energy has been studied but the cost of launching such large satellites has always been prohibitive. However, the situation has changed today.
In fact, in 2015 Falcon 9, a reusable rocket, flies for the first time. The advent of a truly reusable rocket has progressively reduced the cost of sending the equipment into orbit. Instead of costing around $ 1,000 to launch each kilogram into space, the price is now expected to come down to closer to $ 300 per kilogram.
Today, space solar energy seems feasible, and affordable, and could bring substantial economic benefits. Indeed, ESA will ask its member states in November to fund a three-year feasibility study on solar-powered satellites to examine whether such a system could become commercially viable.
There can be no doubt that solar power could lead to better energy security, reduce our carbon output as well as dominate the energy landscape of the future.
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