A new space race is being fought between China and the United States, which intend to obtain solar energy through a photovoltaic plant installed in space.
What appears to be a movie scene is turning into the new race in space for clean energy from a renewable source. According to China, by 2049, the photovoltaic plant installed in space will be producing 1 GigaWatt of electricity.
At $100 million, the photovoltaic plant in space began to be developed in 2018 as an experimental project by China. In addition to the Asian country, the United States is developing a similar project to obtain clean energy using a renewable source.
Far from space, Light DeFi is also developing a photovoltaic plant and taking advantage of Brazil’s ideal climate conditions to install a module soon in Bahia.
Solar energy from space
The United States and China will soon have a large clean energy production with a photovoltaic plant built-in space, which will use the sun to supply the countries.
Before announcing the development of the power station in space, China completed an experimental project that used a balloon 300 meters off the ground to receive the charge transmitted by an energy beam.
With the project completed, the country can use an airship to guarantee up to 1 GW transmission. In this case, the balloon will be 20 km high to collect the load that the plant will transmit.
Brazil is the power of solar energy.
Like China, the United States is also developing a photovoltaic plant off planet Earth that will launch in 2023, called the Space-Based Solar Energy Project (SSPP).
While China and the United States use space to obtain solar energy, Brazil has climatic conditions that favor exploring this type of renewable energy.
As it receives energy from the sun practically all year round, the daily solar incidence in the country varies between 4,444 Wh/m² and 5,483 WH/m², according to information from the Brazilian Solar Energy Atlas.
In this way, it is not necessary to go into space while Brazil has an enormous capacity to produce solar energy. That’s why Light DeFi (LIGHT) chose the country to develop its first photovoltaic plant.
While China plans to obtain 1 MW of electricity from a photovoltaic plant in space by 2030, Light DeFi will soon begin constructing the project’s first photovoltaic plant module in Bahia to produce 1 MW, the same power as the Chinese plant in space.
