0191-9067/83 $3.00 + .00 Copyright ® 1983 SUNSAT Energy Council MARKET POTENTIAL AND POSSIBLE LIMITATIONS FOR SATELLITE SOLAR POWER STATIONS MAURICE J. CLAVERIE and ALAIN P. DUPAS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Programme Interdisciplinaire de Recherches sur les Sciences pour I'Energie et les Matieres Premieres 15, Quai Anatole France, 75700 Paris, France INTRODUCTION Electricity demand will continue to grow at a fast pace during the next fifty years. It will be fulfilled mainly by large electric power plants supplying electricity to large utility grids. There are many reasons pushing towards the increase in power of these “energy parks.” Some are technical limits: Fusion reactors or SSPS (satellite solar power station) rectennas appear not feasible outside the multimegawatt range. Some are economic: A scale effect reduces the cost of building, operation and maintenance of large power plants. Some are environmental: Large energy parks may simplify pollution control, limit fuel, and waste transportation. So, 3 to 5 GW appears as a typical power for the 2000-2025 large power plants. These power plants could be breeder nuclear reactors, advanced coal thermal plants thermonuclear, fusion reactors, etc. What can be expected from solar energy? Solar energy is available for electricity generation on Earth and in space. Ground solar electricity generation must work with the great variability of the solar energy input at Earth surface, according to latitude, hour, season, and weather. In order to provide a nearly constant power, it needs a storage (electrical, thermal, or chemical) or to be complemented by a conventional generator. Due to these limitations, it will probably not be well suited to supply electricity to power grid in industrialized part of the world, but it will surely be well suited to provide in great part the electrical demand in area where extensive power grids do not exist, or where connection to the grid is not convenient. In order to compete on the centralized electricity market, solar electricity will thus have to rely on the concept introduced in 1968 by Peter Glaser: The satellite solar power station (SSPS) working in geostationary orbit, with its panel constantly oriented towards the sun, has a nearly constant supply of solar energy (there is only a seasonal variation of 5% due to Earth orbit eccentricity and satellite orbit inclination, and an eclipse problem up to 74 min per day 20 days apart of each equinoxe). The scaling of the microwave energy transmission link between space and Earth points towards very large SSPS, in the range of 3 to 5 GW. For these reasons (constant level of production and large scale), the SSPS fits very well to the needs of big power grids for large electrical power plants (LEPP), in the range of production of 24 to 40 TWh/year.
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