The UK authorities has introduced a brand new multi-million funding package deal to assist develop applied sciences for the space-based solar energy sector.
Vitality Safety Secretary Grant Shapps will announce the awards throughout a speech at London Tech Week on Tuesday, with a set of UK universities and know-how corporations set to obtain a share of £4.3 million to help innovation within the sector.
Proponents of the know-how would see photo voltaic power-gathering satellites despatched into orbit, which may then beam power by way of radio waves to receiving stations on Earth. Close to everlasting photo voltaic visibility means these methods may present round the clock energy, with one research suggesting the sector may generate as much as 10GW of electrical energy a 12 months by 2050.
It follows claims earlier this month that scientists on the California Institute of Know-how had achieved a world-first by efficiently transmitting solar energy to Earth from house.
Eight UK tasks will probably be awarded funding from the federal government’s House Primarily based Photo voltaic Energy Innovation Competitors, together with £3.3m from the Division for Vitality Safety and Web Zero and £1m from the UK House Company.
Greater than £960,000 has been awarded to Queen Mary College in London which is creating a wi-fi energy transmission system which might help the know-how to beam solar energy from the satellites again to Earth.
The Satellite tv for pc Purposes Catapult will safe just below £1m for an experiment to check the electronical steering and beam high quality of its house satellite tv for pc antenna know-how, in addition to over £424,000 for an additional challenge to check learn how to advance business space-based solar energy that may present a dependable supply of electrical energy for the UK.
Different recipents embrace the College of Cambridge – which is creating ultra-lightweight photo voltaic panels that may survive lengthy durations in high-radiation environments just like the circumstances in house – and MicroLink Gadgets in Port Talbot, which has been granted greater than £449,000 to develop the subsequent technology of light-weight, versatile photo voltaic panels, which may very well be used for photo voltaic satellites.
Secretary of State for Vitality Safety and Web Zero Grant Shapps stated: “I would like the UK to boldly go the place no nation has gone earlier than – boosting our power safety by getting our energy instantly from house.
“We’re taking an enormous leap by backing the event of this thrilling know-how and placing the UK on the forefront of this quickly rising business because it prepares for launch.”
It follows plans by UK agency House Photo voltaic which had been namechecked by Shapps earlier this 12 months throughout discussions round potential know-how collaborations with Saudi Arabia.
House Photo voltaic’s imaginative and prescient includes sending a kilometre-scale satellite tv for pc right into a excessive earth orbit. Utilizing light-weight photo voltaic panels and a system of mirrors, it might focus daylight onto panels, with electrical energy then transformed into excessive frequency radio waves.
Energy could be beamed to a receiving antenna on Earth, described by the corporate as “like a big internet, strung out horizontally over an elliptical space occupying about 6 km x 13 km”.
Mamatha Maheshwarappa, payload methods lead on the UK House Company, added: “House know-how and photo voltaic power have a protracted historical past – the necessity to energy satellites was a key driver in growing the effectivity of photo voltaic panels which generate electrical energy for houses and companies as we speak.
“There may be important potential for the house and power sectors to work collectively to help the event of space-based solar energy, and the UK House Company has contributed £1m to those progressive tasks to assist take this revolutionary idea to the subsequent degree.”
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