Britain and Saudi Arabia are working on ‘solar panels in SPACE’ to beam power to the North Sea 24 hours a day
- A British plan to capture solar power in space an has backing from Saudi Arabia
- Solar panels convert electricity into radiowaves that are transmitted to surface
- Back on Earth, a net-like antenna would convert the waves back into electricity
A pioneering British plan to capture solar power in space and beam it down to Earth 24 hours a day has financial backing from the Saudi Arabian government.
The project by UK-based Space Solar Ltd involves putting solar panels into Earth’s orbit, assembled by robots, that convert electricity into high-frequency radio waves transmitted to the surface.
The entire satellite plus panels would be around a mile wide and weigh 2,000 tonnes.
Back on Earth, a net-like antenna, miles wide, strung between poles would convert the waves back into electricity.
A pioneering British plan to capture solar power in space and beam it down to Earth 24 hours a day has financial backing from the Saudi Arabian government
Putting solar panels on a satellite overcomes the problem faced by solar panels on the ground – as they can still capture the sun’s rays at night and in all weather conditions.
The UK has announced it wants to collaborate with Saudi Arabia on the project, which could collect the beamed energy in the North Sea.
The idea of collecting electricity from solar panels in space and beaming it back to Earth is an idea more than a century old.
It is yet to become a reality, although there is a race between nations working on similar projects, including China, the USA and Japan.
The project by UK-based Space Solar Ltd involves putting solar panels into Earth’s orbit, assembled by robots, that convert electricity into high-frequency radio waves transmitted to the surface
Space Solar Ltd has announced it is working with Neom, a new Saudi city that will cost an estimated £408 billion to construct in the desert.
It is intended to encompass towns, cities, sports, tourist destinations and entertainment centres.
Neom’s interest in the project is to supply carbon free power to the new city.
Neom, together with the UK government have jointly put £3.5million towards the project’s development, according to the Times.
However, the overall cost of the project would be far more – tens of billions of pounds according to a feasibility study commissioned by the UK government by the consultancy firm Frazer-Nash, which estimated a space solar project could be completed by 2040.
The UK has announced it wants to collaborate with Saudi Arabia on the project, which could collect the beamed energy in the North Sea
Business Secretary Grant Shapps said: ‘The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on an ambitious journey to modernise its economy and society, which opens up a host of opportunities for burgeoning British businesses, exporting UK expertise that could transform global access to renewable energy, including space based solar power.’
He praised the desert kingdom as being ‘so open to business, and with aspirations so grand’.
Sam Adlen, co-CEO of Space Solar told the Times: ‘There’s a real partnership to be developed that can have a huge impact on the future of net zero [and] energy security and really help create an era-defining, new energy source.’
But human rights groups have criticised the construction of Neom.
Members of the Howeitat tribe, who live in the country’s north-western desert region near the new city have been imprisoned for 50 years for objecting to their land being seized by the government.
Space Solar says the energy beam would pose no danger to aircraft or satellites or wildlife, and could not be used to make a ‘death ray’ in answers to frequently asked questions on its site.
The city of the future? Saudi Arabia’s Neom
Neom, the flagship project of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is a planned city-state that would cover 10,000 square miles of Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk province, near its borders with Jordan and Egypt.
Neom is a combination of the Greek word neos, or ‘new,’ and mustaqbal, Arabic for ‘future.’
It’s part of an ambitious plan to wean Saudi Arabia off oil dependency and transform the country into a tech hub like Silicon Valley, while also incorporating towns, research centres, education zones, and tourist attractions.
Plans for Neom show it will be 33 times the size of New York City and will have a ‘smart’ city at its centre, also called Neom.
The project is being funded by the country’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, which the Crown Prince is the chairman for.
‘Neom is an accelerator of human progress and a vision of what a new future might look like,’ according to a release from January 2021.
‘It will be a destination and a home for people who dream big and want to be part of building a new model for exceptional livability, creating thriving businesses, and reinventing environmental conservation.’
The region’s stark landscape would be transformed by cloud-seeding machines, the world’s largest coral garden, glow-in-the-dark sand, and a giant artificial moon that lights up nightly.
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