Space based solar power project funded april 28 2015 a sponsored research agreement with northrop grumman corporation will provide caltech up to 17 5 million over three years for the development of the space solar power initiative sspi.
Caltech solar panels.
A tiny fraction of the solar energy captured will be converted on board to electrical energy to power the data processing and communication modules that maintain and repair the station s structure and respond to signals from earth.
Because the primary heating of earth is from solar insolation and an imbalance in incoming verses outgoing radiation is what is asserted to be responsible for recent atmospheric warming why would 95 percent of the extra heat trapped on earth by greenhouse gases be in the oceans when the oceans only account for about 70 of the surface of the earth.
The technology which is being marketed by a new startup company etc solar llc could potentially improve the output of solar panels by about 5 percent regardless of the type of photovoltaic material used to make the panels.
Caltech and northrop grumman corporation have signed a 17 5 million sponsored research agreement for the development of the space solar power initiative sspi.
Technology developed at caltech seeks to improve the efficiency of solar panels by tweaking the architecture of the metal grid layout of individual cells.
Read about the caltech partnership with northrop grumman to create space solar power here.
Pasadena s largest ever solar energy facility will be installed on the caltech campus caltech press release.
The initiative will develop technologies in three areas.
Each of the three leaders of the caltech team is tackling a different part of this formidable system.
Ultralight deployable space structures.
Solar power could be continuously available anywhere on earth.
Caltech s 2500 orbiting solar panels could provide earth with limitless energy.
And phased array and power transmission.
Read about it here.
In april of 2015 a research agreement between northrop grumman and caltech provided up to 17 5m for the development of innovations necessary to enable a space solar power system.
Solar fuels would provide the same quality and quantity of energy services that end users are used to without a massive change in infrastructure and hence would produce drop in fuels that could serve critical sectors of the energy economy both in the developed and developing world.