A US-India Power Exchange Towards A Space Power Grid

Brendan Dessanti, Nicholas Picon, Carlos Rios, Shaan Shah, Narayanan Komerath
Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta GA 30332-0150
Contact: [email protected]

Abstract

The Space Power Grid (SPG) architecture described in papers from our group since 2006, is an evolutionary approach to realizing the global dream of Space Solar Power (SSP). Much of humanity today does not enjoy the $0.10/KWh, uninterrupted delivery of electric power that is taken for granted in urban industrialized societies. In regions that are not wired for power, residents pay exorbitant costs for a few watts or watt-hours and suffer lack of basic amenities and opportunities. SPG first concentrates on helping terrestrial power plants become viable, aligning itself with public policy priorities. It does so by enabling a real-time power exchange through Space to help locate new plants at ideal but remote sites, smooth supply fluctuations, reach high-valued markets, and achieve baseload status. Retail cost is kept to $0.20/KWH with a constellation growing in 17 years to 100 power relay satellites at 2000 km sun-synchronous and equatorial orbits and 200 terrestrial plants, exchanging 220GHz power. In another 23 years, power collection satellites replacing the initial constellation will convert sunlight focused from ultralight collectors in high orbits and add it to the beamed power infrastructure, growing SSP to over 3,000 GWe with wholesale and retail delivery. The SPG-based SSP system can break even at a healthy return on investment, modest development funding, and realistic launch costs. The immense launch cost risk in GEO-based SSP architectures is exchanged for the more modest risk in developing efficient millimeter wave technology in the next decade.

One proposed first step is a US-India space-based power exchange demonstration. We discuss 2 options to achieve near-24-hour power exchange: 1) 4 satellites at 5500km near-equatorial orbits, with ground stations in the USA, India, Australia and Egypt. 2) 6 satellites in 5500 km orbits, with ground stations only in the US and India. The full paper will present the status of our detailed architecture results and identify the areas of uncertainty requiring further R&D or policy assistance.

Presented at ISDC 2011 - Huntsville. Video is available.