Sunny side up, very much up there

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

space farms, unimpeded by Earth's atmosphere, which beam clean uninterrupted energy back to Earth smacks of the science fictional likes of Arthur C Clarke. However, with technology that is already developed, this is something that is inching closer to commercial application as the cost of putting cargoes into space plummets.

Technology being tested by Elon Musk's SpaceX to build reusable rockets to deliver multiple payloads into space could bring down launch costs by around 90%, making it viable to set up solar farms in low Earth orbit that transmit energy to Earth stations as microwaves. It now remains more of an engineering challenge to send, assemble and maintain gigantic solar panel arrays in orbit and to beam back the limitless clean energy on tap in restricted microwave beams.

This moves solar energy — and, by extension, wind energy — on to a different category of renewables than if they are gathered on Earth.

Solar and wind constitute the bulk of the world's focus on energy transition, but are limited by their inconsistency in feeding power grids. Harvesting it in space gets around the core dependence on fossil fuel to keep supplying electricity at night or in cloudy conditions.

Ground stations for solar farms in space also cut down on the area needed to collect terrestrial solar and wind power.

The concept of solar farming in space has been around since the 1960s. But the engineering capability and financial viability are emerging now.

It requires delivering thousands of tonnes of cargo into space that a commercial rocket launch industry should be capable of handling. Fossil fuel burnt in delivery and maintenance of photovoltaic cells in orbit are projected to be of a far lower order than maintaining grid