UK-based company Space Solar is partnering with Reykjavik Energy and Icelandic sustainability initiative Transition Labs to develop a space-based solar power plant that can deliver about 30 megawatts of electricity – potentially enough to power between 1,500 and 3,000 homes – from 2030. The system will collect sunlight in space through solar panels and then transmit it as radio waves at a specific frequency to a ground station, where it will be converted to electricity for the grid.
The satellite is expected to be scalable and quite big. Even if a full version of their CASSIOPeiA power array is not built, we are talking about the heaviest single object in space that is not a space station, and when all the arrays are splayed out, much larger than the International Space Station.
The company aims to have a scaled-up version of the system in space by 2036, which would supply gigawatts of electricity.
Given their abundance of geothermal energy (they keep their footpaths ice-free year round and still have enough to power energy-hungry facilities such as aluminium smelters and data centres), Iceland is probably the country that least needs this.
Most of Iceland’s energy usage is from geothermal sources, but only about a quarter of the electricity is. They do a lot of direct heating with it, literally just heating up a whole bunch of water and running that hot water through pipes to houses and pavements and such, rather than having electricity-powered heating elements everywhere. Most of their electricity production is from hydro though, so it’s still very clean