from China to Japan, the design of a solar space plant mobilizes the great powers

The Japanese Space Agency wants to produce electricity day and night from space and announces that solar panels will soon be put into orbit. The solar space power race is underway, with Japan and China leading the way.

To produce solar energy, you need the sun… A new generation of solar power plants could finally generate electricity even at night and in bad weather. How is this possible? Quite simply by installing solar panels where it never gets dark, where the sun always shines at its maximum intensity, that is to say… in space.

This is the Ohisama project, which is to be launched by the Japanese space agency in 2025. Its objective: to put a satellite with immense solar panels into orbit and return all the recovered energy to earth.

An old project but too expensive at the time

Scientists have found a way to send electricity back to earth by converting it into radio waves. These waves are then transmitted to a ground station which will convert them into electricity. By asking the question, a priori, there would be no danger either for planes or for birds.

This is not a new concept. For the record, it was the Americans who began to take an interest in it during the first oil crisis in 1973. But they quickly abandoned for cost reasons. Today, with reusable launchers and above all, the energy emergency, all the major countries are now starting to take an interest in it again. Even France, with the European Space Agency and the Solaris project. But we are still only carrying out terrestrial experiments.

A first complete power plant planned by China in 2030

Japan is more advanced with this first test satellite which will be launched next year, in 2025. But it is China which could beat everyone to the post. It plans to have a real mini-power plant operational from 2030. With the objective of reaching the power of a nuclear power plant in 2050.

This will not be an easy task. We are still talking about one square kilometer of solar panels. An immense structure that will have to be built in space. But to obtain similar performance with ground panels, it would be necessary to cover an area of ​​more than 20 km². That’s the whole point of putting solar panels in space. Not only will they produce 24 hours a day, but they will no longer take up any floor space.