Iceland, the first country to receive electricity from space.

in Popular STEMyesterday

Iceland, the first country to receive electricity from space.



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When we think of a future where solar energy is not limited by day and night cycles, nor by inclement weather, it still seems distant, true, maybe not so distant, the British startup Space Solar is paving the way to transform That vision became a reality by developing a solar power plant in space and now Iceland could become the first country to receive electricity directly from the stars.


Space Solar's proposal is bold as it is Revolutionary, installing solar collectors in geostationary orbit more than 35,000 km above the Earth. In this position the station would be continuously exposed to uninterrupted sunlight, away from clouds and dust and any terrestrial obstacle.


The idea is to convert the Sun's energy into electricity and then into microwaves that would be transmitted directly to receivers on the Earth's surface. With orbital solar collectors of adequate size, only three space stations would be enough to cover the entire energy demand of the planet. It seems incredible. , but as always the technological and financial challenges are as big as the dreams.




To begin with, these solar stations would need large arrays of photovoltaic panels with dimensions of several kilometers, in addition the receiving antennas on the ground would have to occupy enormous areas, comparable to the size of the island of Manhattan and it does not end there, building and launching these systems would require a gigantic infrastructure, with literally astronomical costs and maintenance another obstacle.


These orbital collectors would have to operate remotely for at least 30 years, which required unprecedented technological robustness, to top it off the efficiency of the solar panels and the losses in the conversion and transmission process still make the cost per kiloWatts hour is much higher than that of other renewable sources available on land.


Despite all the advances in this field they do not stop, projects such as calltech have already shown that transmitting energy from orbit to earth is technically viable and Space Solar is dedicated to transforming this concept and a practical solution, the first step of this revolution begins with Iceland.



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The startup has even more ambitious plans for 2030 to increase capacity to one gigawatt, enough to supply entire cities, and other locations are being evaluated for recipients, including Canada and Japan, expanding the reach of this new energy source.


If the project is successful it will be a milestone in the history of energy generation, imagine a world where there is no energy shortage or severe environmental impacts with space technology connecting homes on earth with the most abundant source of energy in the world. universe, I know it seems like something out of a movie, but maybe we are closer to this than we think.




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