Pacific Gas and Electric shines with Solaren

William Atkins
Wednesday, 15 April 2009 07:02

Science - Energy

Jonathan Marshall, a spokesperson for PG&E, stated, "We're convinced it's a very serious possibility that they can make this work. It's staggering how much power is potentially available in space. And I say 'potentially' because a lot remains unknown about the cost and other details." [SF Gate (San Francisco Chronicle): “California's new power source a solar farm”]

According to PG&E, such a technique allows eight-to-ten times more solar energy to be generated (in a unit area) in space when compared to generating from an Earth-based system.

Such a system is much more efficient that a system collecting sunlight on Earth because the rays from the Sun are unfiltered; that is, they do not have to go through interference from the Earth, such as clouds and other such particles in the atmosphere.

In addition, sunlight will be produced continuously because sunlight will impinge on the orbiting solar panels all of the time.

The PG&E plan will also have to be approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as well as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other federal and state safety agencies.

When hopefully approved and implemented the system will help to produce clean and abundant energy for California, and eventually such systems will produce solar energy for all of Earth.