Japan supports the development of technology to produce electricity from the universe

According to the Nikkei daily, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has decided to support the development of the photovoltaic plate.

In the first phase from 9 / 2014-9 / 2017, the Ministry will support 250 million yen for research activities such as reducing the weight of antennas used in transferring electricity from photovoltaic panels in the universe to the face. land.

This is the idea of ​​putting large solar panels into space at a height of 36,000km, using solar energy in space to generate electricity. The energy collected will be converted into microwaves and transferred to the ground receiving stations.

Sketch a technology to transfer electricity from the universe to the ground.(Source: Nikkei)

Ground antenna stations receive microwaves, convert them to electrification. The advantage of this idea is to take advantage of the abundant solar energy source in the universe, the surface equipment is very small and compact compared to current power plants. It is expected that this idea will be put into practice in the period 2040-2050.

However, this idea is technically difficult such as converting electricity to microwaves as well as transferring microwaves from the universe to the ground, reducing weight and related device sizes . If the device too cumbersome, investors will have to spend 1,000 billion yen (about 10 billion USD) for a set of cosmic electrical equipment with an output of 1 million KW.

To save costs, microwave transmitters must reduce 100 times the weight and thickness of the device to be reduced 10 times compared to test devices. Semiconductor performance converting electricity into electricity must also be improved, from the current 70% to 80%.