GB News: Liam Halligan rages at soaring energy costs
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The Space Energy Initiative (SEI) is an exciting new project that could see Britain set up the first power station in space by 2035. It will be made up of satellites with lightweight solar panels and a system of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto the panels, generating around 3.4 GW of electricity on the satellite. By the mid-2040s, the power generated from the space station could reach 30GW, accounting for up to 30 percent of the UK’s electricity demand.
Mark Garnier, Conservative MP and Chair of the advisory board of the SEI said that this project is the answer to the UK’s “energy problems”, with a huge export potential too.
He told Express.co.uk: “What we are proposing in this is a significant amount of baseload energy that is available the whole time.
“The great thing about this is that it will be on the whole time, and it is renewable, so 24 hours a day providing significant baseload power.
“This makes it both much more reliable than other renewables like wind and ground-based solar and it takes up less land area than those renewables do.
“So, the good news is that this solves all of our energy problems.”
This comes as the UK has been grappling with a crippling energy crisis as the price of gas has soared amid Russian supply cuts and the Ukraine war.
While Britain only gets five percent of its gas from Russia, a volatile international market has sparked a global crisis which prompted the country to lay out a new energy strategy.
Published earlier this month, the Government has stressed that it has a goal of “taking back control”.
And in the future, the SEI could do just that.
But not only will it be able to boost energy security in Britain, but Mr Garnier also suggested that the UK could profit from exporting the technology and excess energy that the SEI will produce.
He explained: “The satellite we are running with…(is) UK technology being designed to provide a number of different things.
“In exactly the same way that Rolls-Royce are building small modular reactors, you can sell potentially a satellite to another country to generate their own power. “
Rolls-Royce’s SMRs were a key part of the energy strategy, and the Government has invested £210million into the nuclear project to help push it forward.
The British engineering firm has previously identified a £250billion export market which it hopes to dig its fingers into.
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But there is another angle in which the SEI can help Britain become a major exporter.
Mr Garnier continued: “Alternatively, we can build and operate them through the normal commercial sector, or the Government.
“You can then sell that energy abroad. If you launch says 15 of these satellites in geostationary orbit above the equator feeding the UK, if there comes a point when we do not need that amount of energy…you can potentially sell the energy to someone else.
“The other thing it can do is generate green hydrogen with that surplus energy so it could then be used for other things.”
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