PowerSat’s space-age idea snags utility, investor attention

Everett, Wash.-based PowerSat’s concept of generating renewable solar power from space could sound a bit out of this world, but the company doesn’t mind the healthy skepticism.

“Every single bit of technology has been demonstrated and proven,” PowerSat CEO William Maness told the Cleantech Group. “It just needs to be scaled up. It’s not rocket science.”

The company said its technology has been gaining interest from utilities and investors. PowerSat also recently filed one patent in the United States for two technologies. The company expects to learn in six to eight months whether the patent has been accepted, while its London affiliate is working on its international patent.

With space solar power, solar energy is essentially captured via satellites (known as powersats) and transmitted wirelessly to receiving stations around the world. Thousands of megawatts can be harnessed and shifted from a receiving station, for example, in New Jersey to one in Los Angeles with the flip of a switch, Maness said.

A 2,500-megawatt power system, which would be financed through bonds, is expected cost $4 billion to $5 billion. The PowerSat system could return $54 billion in profit over 30 years, compared to a coal power plant’s $50 billion in profit over 30 years, Maness said.

Many theories of space solar propose a single, large transmitter in space in order to supply power to a utility. Maness sees problems with those proposals because they rely on a single piece of machinery that could break down, rendering the entire array ineffective. PowerSat’s BrightStar technology allows 300 individual, smaller powersats to form a wireless power transmission beam without being connected.

“Each one has its own solar PV array. Each one has its own transmitter. By itself a BrightStar can’t do anything useful, but when you put 300 of them in a cloud they work together, acting as one large transmitter,” he said.

This prevents one satellite from having to handle gigawatt-levels of power. Each BrightStar is expected to be serviced individually, without compromising the performance of the whole system. The company’s other proprietary technology, Solar Powered Orbital Transfer, or SPOT, decreases the weight of the powersat by 67 percent, reducing launch costs, Maness said.

The concept of solar power satellites, which has been around about 30 years, isn’t limited by weather or geography of Earth-based peak load or load-leveling renewables like wind, solar or biomass, Maness said. Rather PowerSat’s base-load system makes use of the sun as an energy source 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Maness said.

“It’s going to be inevitable,” Maness said. “The anticipated demand (for electricity) over the next two decades is going to take everything we can do just to keep up, let alone get ahead.”

PowerSat is in development mode, at least for the next few years, Maness said. The company is looking for $3 million to $5 million, most likely from angel investors, to build a 10-kilowatt Earth-based demonstration project early next year. The company has already received some commitments from investors.To date, the company is self-funded.

Within 12 to 18 months of the 10-kW demo, Maness has plans for a 1 MW utility demonstration on land, eventually followed by a single BrightStar flying in space.

Maness said utilities have expressed interest in the company's two potential business models, although he wouldn’t name the utilities. The first option is to sell the PowerSat system to a utility or operator.

“They would buy the gear from us and generate the power from it,” he said.

The second alternative includes PowerSat selling the electricity as an independent power producer back to the utility. It’s the same model of one of PowerSat’s competitors, stealthy startup Solaren. However, Solaren already has a contract with Pacific Gas & Electric (NYSE:PCG). Under the agreement, Solaren would design, build and launch the solar array into space, operate the satellite, and deliver the electricity to PG&E’s customers (see Solaren's plan from outer space).

Another company, Switzerland’s Space Energy, has started to assemble a team to develop, own, and operate the first space-based solar power satellites. Space Energy said it plans to be a power generator, selling its energy to those who transmit and distribute electricity to the end user.

There are untold numbers of other design concepts underway, including Syracuse University graduate Eli Hariton's solar arrays the size of football fields (see It came from space!).

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