Les russes et l'énergie venue de l'espace

03/01/2013 Russian scientists suggested produce energy in orbit

TsNIIMASH specialists, brain research institution Roscosmos, launched an initiative to develop a space-based solar power plants with a wireless energy transmission to Earth.

Power stations (SSPS) will be 10.1 GW, and the meaning of the idea - to place in geostationary orbit reflectors, trapping solar energy, which will then be converted and sent to Earth, according to "Izvestia".

According to the chief scientist TsNIIMASH Valery Melnikov, in 2016 American consortium intends to develop SSPS gigawatt level, and by 2025, Japanese companies are also planning to construct a similar SSPS (project Solarbird). According to experts, the total investment in the SSPS is 24 billion dollars.

The concept of foreign companies is that of a huge solar panel (its area - a few square kilometers), is located in space, energy is collected and then converted to a microwave signal, which is then transmitted to a ground antenna dish. Then on Earth is the inverse transform of the microwave signal into electricity.

Melnikov said that the concept of laser SSPS is very close to the microwave version. Here solar panels feed the solid-state lasers, which are located in their area and from which optical fibers for energy is going to the central optical system. The system transfers this energy to Earth, where she PHOTOELECTRIC again converted into electricity.

Of the benefits of infrared solid-state lasers had lower divergence of the laser beam in comparison with the microwave signal, which gives the orders of a smaller area of ​​receiving and transmitting systems. As a result, due to the small reception area is possible energy high-latitude regions of Russia, Greenland, Canada, and other islands in the northern latitudes and Antarctica from a geostationary orbit SSPS.

Finally, note that, as noted in TsNIIMASH, Japanese and American developers have chosen to use the microwave conversion, which today is much less efficient than a laser. Their development is based on the many kilometers of skeletal structures, which are much less efficient than centrifugal frameless, the experience of which there is only in Russia, write "News".