A model power station at Xidian University in Shaanxi province captures sunlight high above the ground and converts it into microwave beams. It then transmits through the air to a receiver station on the ground, where it can be converted back to electricity.
The model sends the energy only 55 meters through the air. But the researchers hope the technology could one day be expanded to send power from orbiting solar panels to Earth. The research team behind it recently conducted tests in front of a panel of outside experts. They verified its success on June 5, the university said in a press release.
The promise of solar power from space is that it would eliminate the clean energy technology’s biggest drawback – not being able to operate in darkness – by putting the panels in orbit where they can evade Earth’s shadow.China is not the only country looking into the technology. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology launched a space solar program after a $US100 million grant in 2013.
Individual components of solar-from-space technology have been tested before. But the Chinese researchers are the first to successfully test a full-system model, Xidian said.
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