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Solar power as it should be done

Looks like the old solar power satellite idea may be coming back with a vengeance. From MS/NBC:

PG&E makes deal for space solar power
Utility to buy orbit-generated electricity from Solaren in 2016, at no risk

California's biggest energy utility announced a deal Monday to purchase 200 megawatts of electricity from a startup company that plans to beam the power down to Earth from outer space, beginning in 2016.

San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric said it was seeking approval from state regulators for an agreement to purchase power over a 15-year period from Solaren Corp., an 8-year-old company based in Manhattan Beach, Calif. The agreement was first reported in a posting to Next100, a Weblog produced by PG&E.

Solaren would generate the power using solar panels in Earth orbit and convert it to radio-frequency transmissions that would be beamed down to a receiving station in Fresno, PG&E said. From there, the energy would be converted into electricity and fed into PG&E's power grid.

This idea has been kicked around since the late 1960's and we are now getting to the point where it can be a commercially viable process. The technology has caught up with the idea. The complexity of the system will be very high -- it has to be a geosynchronous orbit so having it be a manned station is not an option for a number of reasons. The structure will be huge with both the solar array and the transmitting antenna. Still, once the first one goes up, each of the successive units will be that much cheaper and easier... More. Faster. Please. Posted by DaveH at April 14, 2009 11:46 AM