Once built, the futuristic system would use satellites to transmit solar energy to receiving stations on Earth.
published today by the university. The plant is a 246-foot-tall steel structure located on Xidian University’s southern campus, and it’s equipped with with five different subsystems meant to foster the eventual development of space-based solar power arrays.could continuously collect photons from the Sun, convert them to electricity using photovoltaic cells, and wirelessly beam that electricity as microwaves back to receivers on the surface—like the one at Xidian University.
world problems, the main issues would be the cost of launching these satellites and building the space-based solar collectors, in addition to some dicey technological and safety hurdles.The newly built ground station is a part of the team’s space-based solar power proposal called , which stands for Orb-Shape Membrane Energy Gathering Array. Once built and parked in geostationary orbit, OMEGA will collect energy from the Sun, convert it to electrical energy, and transmit it to Earth as microwaves via antenna.yan from the Xidian University School of Electromechanical Engineering and his colleagues. concept, which would feature a single space-based satellite comprised of several smaller elements that could transmit power back to Earth.
yan is one of the lead researchers on China’s ground array research, which will be used to test possible OMEGA subsystems, including the conversion of sunlight into energy and the wireless transmission of it.