| NASA Outlines the Pathway for Cost-competitive Space-Based Solar Power
Washington DC, January 12, 2024 – In a new report released yesterday, NASA outlined how developing Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) can provide a strategic clean energy source for the United States. Their analysis underscores the carbon reduction and economic growth potential of this energy source if it is backed by American innovation from the federal government and private sector working together.
Space-Based Solar Power is a concept first proposed in the 1960s for placing satellites in Earth orbit to collect 24-hour-a-day sunlight and beam that clean energy to antennas on the surface of the Earth. Recent developments, including low-cost space access, mass-produced satellites, and other commercial-led innovations, are unlocking this capability within the next 10-20 years. This new report from NASA catalogs huge technical and economic advances made since their last assessment of SBSP technology twenty-five years ago.
The study released yesterday highlights SBSP’s potential to deliver nearly unlimited electricity wherever it is needed at competitive prices while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The report underscores the importance of a national strategy for SBSP to ensure the rapid delivery of this system for national clean energy goals. While acknowledging SBSP’s remaining challenges, the report demonstrates that the technology could achieve a potential price range of $40-80/MWh by 2050 and a potential emission range of 3000-4000 gCO2e/MWh, low enough to contribute significantly to global carbon reduction goals. Its results highlight the need for broader involvement in SBSP-related energy market analysis and technology development by other U.S. government agencies since energy development is not NASA’s primary mission. The report concludes with recommendations for further studies and potential coordination with U.S. and international partners on SBSP technology development.
The U.S. will not be alone in pursuing this opportunity. The European Space Agency’s SOLARIS initiative has published recent independent cost-benefit studies that concluded SBSP would provide substantial environmental, economic, strategic, and energy security benefits for Europe when deployed at scale.
The Space Frontier Foundation has championed Space-Based Solar Power for its potential as an economic driver of human settlement of the solar system and as a way space industrialization can improve Earth’s environment for humanity. Last November, Foundation volunteers advocated for an amendment by U.S. Representatives Mullin and McCormick to the Commercial Space Act of 2023 (H.R. 6131) which directed the Commerce Department to work with NASA in further assessing commercial Space Based Solar Power. The amendment was unanimously accepted by the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
The team also worked with members of the committee to add space-based solar power as a research area explicitly included in the NASA/DOE Interagency Research Coordination Act (H.R. 2988).
The Foundation is spearheading an initiative to promote SBSP with the US utility industry and other federal agencies beyond NASA because, in the words of Foundation SBSP project manager Srikanth Raviprasad: “Timely progress on SBSP will require a whole of government approach involving NASA, DOE, DOD, and the commercial space and energy sectors.”
Added Foundation Executive Director Sean Mahoney: “Space-Based Solar Power is one of the clear and immediate ways space can be used to further benefit humans here on earth. The convergence of increased demand for low carbon energy with dramatic expansion of commercial space capabilities has moved Space Based Solar Power from “one day” to “today”. This report retires the concerns that Space Based Solar Power is science fiction, and shows that NASA and the U.S. government are recognizing the climate-friendly economic benefits of global leadership of this new energy system.”
About the Space Frontier Foundation:
The Space Frontier Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to opening the space frontier to human settlement as rapidly as possible. For more information, please visit www.spacefrontier.org.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Sean Mahoney
Press@SpaceFrontier.org
202-240-7009 |
